Polarizing Power

[405289292]

Can someone define polarizability and polarizing power please? I am still slightly confused and want to be sure I have it down for the upcoming quiz/final.

[Tiffany Dong_4e]

A cation's ability to distort an anion's electron cloud is polarizing power. Polarizability is the tendency of a cation to be affected by an anion's polarizing power.

[405289292]

A cation's ability to distort an anion's electron cloud is polarizing power. Polarizability is the tendency of a cation to be affected by an anion's polarizing power.

And so basically does this mean that a there is more covalent properties in the ionic bond?

[Julie Park 1G]

Yes, the textbook (2.D.2) says that when the distortion of the e- cloud on the anion increases, the covalent character of the bond also increases.

[abby hyman]

Polarizability is how easily an electron cloud is distorted by an electric field. Polarizing power is a cations ability to attract valence electrons from a nearby anion in ionic compounds

[sarahforman_Dis2I]

Can someone define polarizability and polarizing power please? I am still slightly confused and want to be sure I have it down for the upcoming quiz/final.

Polarizability is the ease at which electrons can be moved away from the nucleus whereas polarizing power is how easily a cation can pull electrons away from an anion. Polarizability increases (it becomes easier to pull electrons away) as the anionic radius increases. Polarizing power increases (increased pull of electrons) as cationic radius decreases.

[Subashni Rajiv 1K]

Small cations have a high polarizing power while large anions have high polarizability.