Electronegativity and Bond Strength

[Elizabeth Ignacio 1C]

Is there a correlation between electronegativity and bond strength?

[Mike Vinci 2B]

Hey Elizabeth, I was wondering the same thing earlier this week, and I'm glad you asked the question. So after doing some research online and in the book, I've come to the understanding that one may "safely assume" that the greater the electronegativity, the stronger the bond. If you think about the bounding of atoms from the left and right side of the periodic table, the left tends to want to give away or share an electron, while the right generally wants to gain an electron in order to make their shells more stable. As the difference in electronegativity decreases, the two atoms don't want to bond together as much, and so the bond strength decreases. As I mentioned before, you can safely assume this concept, however given the dynamics of chemistry, I'm sure their exists some type of counter argument for bonds between specific atoms that would require more research.

[Girija_3E]

I had the same logic. But, in problem 3.87 of the textbook, it says "Note that electronegativity and polarity arguments would predict the C-F bond to be the weakest [out of CF4, CCl4, and CBr4]," and that confused me. I also did some research online, and most are coming to the conclusion that the more the electronegativity difference, the stronger the bond.

[Catherine Yang 3G]

I think bond strength has more to do with bond length than electronegativity. Shorter bonds are stronger. For example, fluorine-carbon bonds are stronger than chlorine-carbon bonds because the fluorine atom is smaller than the chlorine atom, so there is a stronger interaction with fluorine and carbon.

[Isabella Zizolfi 2F]

Bond strength and electronegativity are not really strictly related, but bond strength is more connected with the length of the atomic radius: smaller the atomic radius is, stronger the bond will be.
In fact between CF4, CCl4, and CBr4, CF4 has the strongest bond because in all the three molecules we have carbon (C) as one of the two atoms and it always has the same size, so we have to look at the second atom, and F has the shortest radius so it is the "smallest", and, consequently, the C atom and the F atom are more attached one to the other.