Electric Dipole Moment of copper and sulphate ions

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
1 reply · 5K views
kihr
Messages
98
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement


The electric dipole moment of a CuSO4 molecule is 3.2 * 10^-32 (i.e. 10 raised to the power of -32)C-m. Find the separation between the copper and sulphate ions.


Homework Equations



Electric deipole moment = 2aq where 2a=separation between the two charges q and -q



The Attempt at a Solution



I am unable to proceed with the given data, because I need to find out the value of q. Please help me with some clues.The answer is 10^-3m. Thanks.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
I suggest you Google "Copper Sulfate" and find out how ionized each component is (eg. If the compound is formed by doubly ionized Copper, you would have [itex]\text{Cu}^{2+}[/itex] and [itex]\text{SO}_4{}^{2-}[/itex] and so [itex]q[/itex] would be 2 times the charge of the electron).