Electronegativity

Copyright © 2001, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited

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 Electronegativity:
Attracting Electrons
• When two atoms form a bond, each atom attracts the other atom’s electrons in addition to its
own. The electronegativity (EN) of an atom is a measure of an atom’s ability to attract
electrons in a chemical bond
– Electronegativity is the periodic property of atoms that are involved in chemical bonds

• The trend for electronegativity is the reverse of the trend for atomic size. There are two
general trends for electronegativity:

I. As you go across a period, the electronegativity increases

 The number of protons (which attract the electrons) in the nucleus increases. At the
same time, the number of filled, inner electron energy levels (which shield the
protons from the valence electrons) remains the same.

 Thus the electrons are pulled more tightly to the nucleus, resulting in a smaller
atomic size

 The atom attracts a bonding pair of electrons more strongly, because the bonding
pair can more closer to the nucleus
II. As you go down each group in the periodic table, the electronegativity decreases
 Valence electrons are less strongly attracted to the nucleus because the number
of filled electron energy levels between the nucleus and the valence electrons
increases.

 In a compound, increasing energy levels between valence electrons and the

nucleus mean that the nucleus attracts bonding pairs less strongly.

Ionic vs. Covalent

• Ionic compounds are compounds that are
comprised of a metal and a non-metal
whereas a covalent compound contains
atoms that share their electrons.
• As a matter of fact, all bonds share
electrons, however that sharing can be
either equal or unequal.

• A bond is said to be polar covalent when

the electrons are slightly/moderately
unequally shared between atoms.
• The Greek symbol delta (δ), which means “partially charged”, is used to describe the
somewhat positive and negative regions of the molecule.

Non-polar Covalent Polar Covalent Ionic

• The differences between electronegativities can be used to decide whether the bond
between two atoms is non-polar covalent, polar covalent, or ionic.

http://butane.chem.uiuc.edu/cyerkes/chem102ae_fa08/homepage/Chem102AEFa07/Lecture_Notes_102/Lecture%2012%20_files/image24.gif
• The symbol ΔEN stands for the difference between two electronegativity values.

• When calculating the electronegativity difference (ΔEN), the smaller electronegativity is

always subtracted from the larger electronegativity, so that the electronegativity difference
is always positive.

EN

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