• Electronegativity?is the ability of an atom to draw a pair of electrons towards itself in a covalent bond
• Electronegativity?increases?across a Period and?decreases?going down a Group

Polarity

• When two atoms in a covalent bond have the?same electronegativity?the covalent bond is?nonpolar

The two chlorine atoms have similar electronegativities so the bonding electrons are shared equally between the two atoms

• When two atoms in a covalent bond have?different electronegativities?the covalent bond is?polar?and the electrons will be drawn towards the?more electronegative?atom
• As a result of this:
  • The negative charge centre and positive charge centre do not?coincide?with each other
  • This means that the?electron distribution?is?asymmetric
  • The?less?electronegative?atom gets a partial charge of δ+ (delta?positive)
  • The?more?electronegative?atom gets a partial charge of δ- (delta?negative)
• The greater the difference in?electronegativity?the more polar the bond becomes

Cl has a greater electronegativity than H causing the electrons to be more attracted towards the Cl atom which becomes delta negative and the H delta positive

Dipole moment

• The?dipole moment?is a measure of how?polar?a bond is
• The?direction?of the dipole moment is shown by the following sign in which the?arrow?points to the?partially negatively charged end?of the dipole:

The sign shows the direction of the dipole moment and the arrow points to the delta negative end of the dipole

Assigning polarity to molecules

• To determine whether a molecule with?more than two atoms?is polar, the following things have to be taken into consideration:
  • The polarity of each bond
  • How the bonds are arranged in the molecule
• Some molecules have?polar bonds?but are overall not?polar?because the polar bonds in the molecule are arranged in such way that the individual dipole moments?cancel each other out

There are four polar covalent bonds in CH3Cl which do not cancel each other out causing CH3Cl to be a polar molecule; the overall dipole is towards the electronegative chlorine atom

Though CCl4?has four polar covalent bonds, the individual dipole moments cancel each other out causing CCl₄?to be a nonpolar molecule