Ac a personal level, however, the event has been very significant for me since it has become a step beyond

just interpreting someone elses chemistry. I should indeed welcome further opportunity to defend and refine (perhaps even change) my position. A more extended discussion of the educational implications of the research is given in ref 3.

Literature Cited

1. Dearner, D. W.; Selinger, B. K.]. Chem. Educ. 1988, 65, 518. 2. Atkins, P. W. Physical Chemistry, 4th ed.; Oxford University Press: N?w York, 1990; p 133. 3. Goodwin, A. J. Chem. Educ., Res. Practice Eur. 2000, 1 (1), 5160; online at http:/!urww.uoi.grlconf_semJcerapie/2000_January/ llgoodwinf.html (accessed Nov 2000).

Electronegativity and Bond Type: Predicting Bond Type

Gordon Sproul
Department of Chemistry, University of South Carolina at Beaufort, Beaufort, SC 29902; CDSproul@gwm.sc.edu

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Electronegativity, EN, arid electronegativity difference, AEN, are used to explain many chemical observations such as acidity of solvents, mechanisms of chemical reaction, distribution of electrons, and polarity of bonds. Essentially all general chemistry textbooks during the past 30 years have indicated that the AEN between bonded atoms is an indica- don of whether compounds should be dassified as ionic or covalent. Some authors use a AEN value of 1.7 (or a value between 1.5 and 2.0) to roughly divide these compounds by bond types. Others recognize the gradual variation from polar covalent to ionic bonding but do not provide numerical discrimination. Thus, there has been no general agreement on what, if any, value of AEN should be used to predict bond type. It is the purpose of this paper to show that AEN is an improper junction for separating ionic from covalent bonding.
Background

Pauling recognized chat bonds between unlike atoms in a compound typically have a greater bond energy than thac of che average of the corresponding homoaromic bonds (1, p 100). From this he reasoned chat there is added stability in heteroatomic bonds arising from an ionic component of energy due to coulombic attraction from partially and oppositely charged heteroatomic atoms. To quantitate these observadons, he defined the term electronegativity as the power of an atom in a molecule to attract electrons. On the basis of this definition, Pauling then devised equadons based on AEN to estimate . bond energies between heteroatomic atoms (i, p 88). He also determined on the basis of dipole1 moment measurements that a AEN on the Pauling scale 2 of electronegativities of 1.7 indicated 50% ionidty. Compounds with AEN less than this value could be described as having mosdy covalent character and those with a greater value were said to be mosdy ionic. Since the publication of Paulings description of bonding, AEN has been used to estimate relative ionic contributions in heteroatomic bonds. Nevertheless, it is widely recognized that this algorithm provides only an imprecise guide to bonding character. General chemistry textbooks can be separated into two categories by how they describe this imprecision. The first group of texts provides a numerical value that (roughly) divides ionic from covalent bonding; these often follow the arguments of Pauling by stating that a AEN of 1.7 (or some value between 1.5 and 2.0) can be used to make an approximate division (2). The

second group of textbooks states that it is improper to designate any specific dividing line, but that AEN values can serve as a rough guide for evaluating bond character (j). Interatomic bonding is often characterized by one of three bonding models: ionic, covalent, or metallic. Classification ' of compounds into one of these is based on various physical properties induding electrical conductivity of the solid, liquid, and soludon states; luster; solubility in polar solvents; and crystalline structure. Many compounds can be reasonably categorized as one of these three types, although it is generally recognized that most heteroatomic bonds exhibit a mixture, of these ideal bond types {4). In his seyeral editions of Structural Inorganic Chemistry (5), A. E 'Wells characterized compounds on the basis of their structural and physical properries. Because the physical properties of many compounds suggest a mixed bond character, Wells generally chose to describe compounds geometrically (5, p 64). He avoided use of values of EN or especially AEN to describe bond type;(6"). Nevertheless, throughout his book he described many compounds thac exhibit primarily' only one of each of che chree ideal" bonding cypes, using cerms such as ionic, essentially covalenc, metallic bonds, molecular, etc. By sdecting only binary compounds formed by representative elements that exhibit primarily one of the three dasses of bonding, a data set containing each of the three ideal compound types was compiled. This set consists of 312 binary compounds, of which 164 were described as covalent, 94 as ionic, and 54 as metallic.3 Using this data set of well-categorized compounds, it has been possible to compare the three bonding types with various functions of EN.
The Problem with Electronegativity Differences

Because the AEN value for two bonded atoms converts the two EN terms into only one difference value, roughly half of the information inherent in the two electronegativity values is lost with the difference function AEN. To retain all of the information inherent in the two initial values, a second independent variable must be induded. 'Since AEN is a difference function, the sum function that averages electronegativities' is an obvious choice for this. Dozens of scales of electronegativity have been proposed, some of which appear to be superior to the one described by

JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu Vol. 78 No. 3 March 2001 Journal of Chemical Education 387