Repulsion Strength

[KMcFarland_2L]

How do you determine which molecules have higher repulsion strengths versus lower repulsion strengths?

[Peter DePaul 1E]

A greater repulsion force typically results from a molecule having a lone pair on the molecule, which increases the repulsion forces between molecules.

[Varsha Ravi 3E]

Building on from that, if an atom has more lone pairs, then those lone pairs will push down more on the bonded electrons (resulting in more repulsion strength than an atom with only one lone pair or none).

[Helena Xu 1I]

Repulsion strength in an increasing order would be bonding-bonding pair, lone-bonding pair, and lone-lone pair. This means that repulsions will be higher if there are lone pairs involved compared to if there were only bonds.

[Justin Nguyen 3E]

Bonds in which the atoms have a higher amount of lone pairs results in higher repulsion strength because the electrons are more delocalized and are usually closer to each other, causing stronger repulsions.

[Kyla Roche 2K]

Two lone pairs have the highest repulsion, then a lone pair and bond have the second highest repulsion leaving two bonds to have the lowest repulsion.

[Sreeram Kurada 3H]

Lone pairs typically have the highest repulsion since there are no electrons being shared, while bonded pairs typically have the lowest repulsion since the electrons are being shared. Therefore, two lone pairs have the highest repulsion, followed by one lone pair, and bond pairs have the least repulsion.

[Tobie Jessup 2E]

From one of Dr. Lavelle's lectures, I remember him ranking repulsion strength as so: lone pair-lone pair> lone pair-bonding pair> bonding pair bonding pair.

[manisha_joseph_1H]

From Professor Lavelle's lectures, the order of repulsion strength from least to greatest is bonding-bonding pair, lone-bonding pair, and lone-lone pair.