Elements with a high electronegativity (χ ≥ 2.2 in Figure 2.12.2) have very negative affinities and large ionization potentials, so they are generally nonmetals and electrical insulators that tend to gain electrons in chemical reactions (i.e., they are oxidants). Because electronegativities generally increase diagonally from the lower left to the upper right of the periodic table, elements lying on diagonal lines running from upper left to lower right tend to have comparable values (e.g., O and Cl and N, S, and Br).Įlectronegativity Differences between Metals and NonmetalsĪn element’s electronegativity provides us with a single value that we can use to characterize the chemistry of an element. If we ignore the inert gases and elements for which no stable isotopes are known, we see that fluorine (\(\chi = 3.98\)) is the most electronegative element and cesium is the least electronegative nonradioactive element (\(\chi = 0.79\)). Periodic variations in Pauling’s electronegativity values are illustrated in Figure 2.12.1 and Figure 2.12.2. Figure 2.12.1 A Plot of Periodic Variation of Electronegativity with Atomic Number for the First Six Rows of the Periodic Table Pauling arbitrarily set the electronegativity of fluorine at 4.0 (although today it has been refined to 3.98), thereby creating a scale in which all elements have values between 0 and 4.0. The original electronegativity scale, developed in the 1930s by Linus Pauling (1901– 1994) was based on measurements of the strengths of covalent bonds between different elements. For example, all scales predict that fluorine has the highest electronegativity and cesium the lowest of the stable elements, which suggests that all the methods are measuring the same fundamental property. Nevertheless, when different methods for measuring the electronegativity of an atom are compared, they all tend to assign similar relative values to a given element. ![]() In fact, an atom’s electronegativity should depend to some extent on its chemical environment because the properties of an atom are influenced by its neighbors in a chemical compound. Unlike ionization energy or electron affinity, the electronegativity of an atom is not a simple, fixed property that can be directly measured in a single experiment. ![]() Elements with low electronegativities tend to lose electrons in chemical reactions and are found in the lower left corner of the periodic table. ![]() ![]() Elements with high electronegativities tend to acquire electrons in chemical reactions and are found in the upper right corner of the periodic table. The most important method uses a measurement called electronegativity (represented by the Greek letter chi, χ, pronounced “ky” as in “sky”), defined as the relative ability of an atom to attract electrons to itself in a chemical compound. Conversely, the elements with the lowest ionization energies are generally those with the least negative electron affinities and are located in the lower left corner of the periodic table.īecause the tendency of an element to gain or lose electrons is so important in determining its chemistry, various methods have been developed to quantitatively describe this tendency. The elements with the highest ionization energies are generally those with the most negative electron affinities, which are located toward the upper right corner of the periodic table (compare Figure 2.9.2 and Figure 2.10.2).
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