Polar and Nonpolar

[Claudeth Martinez 1D]

hello,

Does anyone how I can tell when a molecule is polar or nonpolar?

[Haowen_Liang_3E]

It comes down to if the molecule has charged regions (e- spending more time near one atom instead of both), and if charge regions are positioned to balance the charge (example: two (-) charged atom on either side of a (+) charged atom).

[Rachel Dang 1H]

You can calculate polar and non-polar with electronegativity levels since that will reveal whether an electron is shared unequally or not. For the most part diatomic molecules are non-polar.

[Rachel Yoo 1F]

Polar bonds have an unequal sharing of electrons while nonpolar bonds do have equal sharing

[MadisonB]

Polar: there is an uneven distribution of charge

Nonpolar: there is a completely symmetric distribution of charge

Video explaining this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiZXRScxbl0

[Mallory_Podosin_1H]

Kind of an extension of this question - so the only way to have a nonpolar covalent bond would be if the electronegativity is the same meaning the same element?

[g orloff 1J]

it also has to do with the shape of the molecule with one side having the opposite charge compared to the other side. A non polar molecule will have a symmetrical charge across the molecule.

[Xinyi Zeng 4C]

The greater the electronegativity difference between the two atom, the more polar the bond is. Usually a covalent bond formed between two different atoms will be polar, except for covalent bonds formed between C/S/H/P as they have similar electronegativities.
If there is polar bond present in the molecule, then we will have to determine the shape of molecule using the Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion Theory (which I believe we will learn soon). Once we know the shape of the molecule, we will know whether there is an overall dipole moment, if there is, then the molecule is polar.