Polar v. Nonpolar

[MedhaVallurupalli1F]

How do you figure out if a molecule is polar/nonpolar and how do dipoles relate to this?

[Yilun Ding]

First, a polar molecule must contain polar bonds. Then, if all polar bonds can cancel out it can be a nonpolar molecules, if cannot, it will become a polar molecule. To figure out whether all the dipoles can cancel out completely, you can use a vector diagram to see it clearly.

[Yasmin Olvera 1D]

Do dipoles influence if an atom has polar or nonpolar bonds?

[Sisi Li 1F]

Dipole moments occur wherever there is an unequal sharing of electrons, which makes the compound polar. If you look at the elements and see that they have different electronegativities, then electrons will be unequally shared. The element with the greater electronegativity will pull electrons towards it, creating the unequal sharing

[Bella Martin]

is CH4 a nonpolar molecule because the vectors of the bonds cancel out? What about CH3+?

[Chris Charton 1B]

Yes, the vectors would cancel out with that shape, but more importantly C-H is not a polar covalent bond, they both have similar Electronegativities. CH3+ would also be a symmetrical shape with canceling vectors, but again, the bonds are not polar.

[Kaitlyn Jang 1F]

A polar molecule has polar bonds, meaning the electrons in a covalent bond is unequally shared due to one of the atoms being more strongly electronegative than the other. An example of this would be H2O, where oxygen is more electronegative than hydrogen. The unequal sharing creates dipoles, and oxygen has a partial negative charge while hydrogen has a partial positive charge. Nonpolar molecules have nonpolar covalent bonds, meaning the electrons are shared equally between atoms and do not create partial charges. For example, Cl2 is nonpolar because the electrons are being shared equally between the two atoms.

[Ruth Glauber 1C]

Try drawing out a lewis structure and comparing formal charges for each atom.

[Pipiena Malafu 3J]

To determine whether the dipoles are polar or not, you're also going to need the shape of the molecule. To double check, you could find an electronegativity chart and check to see if the difference between values surpass the nonpolar covalent point.

[Amir Bayat]

A trick for finding nonpolar bonds are diatomic molecules. Since the electronegativity difference is zero between two of the same atom, the bonds are nonpolar and the electrons are equally shared between the two atoms.

[CynthiaLy4F]

A molecule is polar when there is an unequal sharing of electrons between two atoms that arise due to differences in electronegativity. A molecule is nonpolar if electrons are shared equally, resulting in no dipole moment.

[BCaballero_4F]

If electrons are shared equally, it is nonpolar. If electrons are shared unequally, it is polar, which you should be able to see once you calculate formal charge.