HW: 2D Q5c

[ahuang]

When determining whether which compound has bonds with greater ionic character, do you use the difference in electronegativity between the atoms? If so, how can you tell if C-O electronegativity difference is greater than that of C-S?

[nehashetty_2G]

Yes, you use the electronegativity difference to determine if a bond is ionic, covalent, polar covalent, etc. Anything with an
EN difference > 2.0 is ionic. In terms of determining C-O vs C-S and which is greater you would need to compare the electronegativity of O and S. Remember that we learned the electronegativity trends which are that electronegativity increases as you move up a group and right on a period. Therefore, we know that O has a greater EN than S because it is higher in the group. Since O is greater than S, the C-O bond has a greater difference than C-S.

[Shutong Hou_1F]

The electronegativity of O is greater than that of S, because they have the same number of valence electrons, but O has more effective nuclear charge, because O has more protons, therefore more positive charges, in the nucleus.