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Which compound BH3 or BO3 would have polar covalent bonds? How do you know?These are the options in photo

Which compound BH3 or BO3 would have polar covalent bonds? How do you know?These are-example-1
User Cyngus
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1 Answer

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To solve this problem, let's find the electronegativity difference that we have between each pair of elements. If we look for the electronegativity of B, H and O we might find these values:

B: 1.5 O: 3.4 H: 2.1

So the two bonds that are present in our molecules have a difference of:

O ---- B = 3.4 - 1.5 = 1.9

H ----- B = 2.1 - 1.5 = 0.6

We have two types of covalent bonds, polar and non-polar. When the electronegativity difference is between 1.5 and 0.4 the bond is covalent polar, when it is less that 0.4 is non-polar and when it is higher than 1.5 it is ionic.

In our case, the electronegativity difference between O and B is 1.9, it seems that it would be an ionic bond. But that's not an option. The difference between H and B is 0.6, the polarity of that bond is weak compared to the polarity of the bond between O and B (if we consider that it is covalent).

So the answer to our problem is the first one:

BO₃ would have polar covalent bonds because

User Bendy
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