Polarity

[Samin Kabir]

How do you determine polarity of a molecule. Specifically what value would be considered polar or non polar?

[DanielHong2L]

How do you determine polarity of a molecule. Specifically what value would be considered polar or non polar?

It's considered polar if there are even slight charges within the molecule.

In Dr. Lavelle's discussion session, he talked about how to determine polarity / non polarity, one must know the lewis structure to see the electrons, and the shape of the molecule to see if the charge vectors cancelled each other out

[isha dis3d]

I believe if the difference in electronegativity for the atoms in a bond is greater than 0.4, we consider the bond polar. If the difference in electronegativity is less than 0.4, the bond is essentially nonpolar. If the electronegativity difference is greater than 2 it is considered ionic, and if it is less than 1.5 it is considered covalent.

[RDove_3G]

In today's lecture, Dr. Lavelle also said that we will have to rank bonds based on how polar they are relative to each other which would not require a specific cut off for polar or nonpolar.