Aluminum Chloride

[Michael Iter 2F]

In Dr. Lavelle's final review session, he went over the lewis structure for aluminum chloride, which showed the central Al covalently bonded to three Cl atoms. How come this isn't an ionic structure since it ends in -ide?

[Simi Kapila_3E]

Ionic molecules are considered to have an electronegativity difference of 2. Since aluminum has an electronegativity of 1.61 and chlorine has an electronegativity has a difference of 3.16, their difference isn't big enough, and wouldn't be considered an ionic bond.

[Kyla Roche 2K]

Also, when looking at the periodic table, Al and CL are relatively close to each other meaning their electronegativity difference won't be very large. Typically elements close to each other on the table are more covalent while those far apart are more ionic.