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Electronegativity: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Electronegativity is an atom's attraction for electrons in a bond. In
other words, it is a measure of the drawing power of an atom when it is part
of a compound. The greater the atom's power to attract electrons, the greater
the electronegativity. Electropositive is a term used to describe
elements with a very low electronegativity such as alkali metals. There are
three main scales use to calculate the electronegativity, the Pauling,
Mulliken, and Allred-Rochow scales. For our purposes, we will be talking
primarily about the Mulliken scale. The Mulliken scale calculates electronegativity as the average of the ionization energy and the electron affinity.
![]() This scale is beneficial because it takes into account the differences in electronegativites of different orbitals as well as the atom's state of hybridization. Some electronegativity calculations are given below.
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