What are examples of dipoles?
1 Answer
Any molecule that has a nonzero vector sum of dipole moments is said to be polar and have a dipole moment
Explanation:
A dipole moment refers to slight opposite charges on opposite sides of a bond. The resulting bond is said to be polar; it has a positive pole and a negative pole, much like a bar magnet.
In order to determine if a particular bond is polar or not, one must look for the electronegativity of each atom. Pauling's electronegativity is a measure of how strong a particular atom pulls electrons towards it in a bond. The value of the difference between their electronegativities (
If:
Consider the bonds in
There is one oxygen bonded to two hydrogens in one water molecule. Based on the difference in electronegativites for the bonds, it is clearly a polar molecule
In the figure above, the
Notice that the water molecule has an overall dipole moment that points straight up towards the oxygen. This is because a dipole moment of a molecule depends on the vector sum of the bond dipoles.
Consider
As you can see, the