# Molecular dipole moment?

1. ### babbagee

74
Molecular dipole moment???

What is a Molecular Dipole moment. My book explains it but i still dont get it. And here is a problem that ask me about it.

Which molecule in each pair has the greater dipole moment
a. SO2 or SO3
b. ICl or IF
c. SiF4 or SF4
d. H2O or H2S

Give the reason for your choice.

You only have to do one or two. After that ill get the point.

Thanks

2. ### repugno

79
A dipole moment is created when there is a difference in electronegativity between the bonded atoms. Thus, electrons from one atom is attracted closer to the other causing one atom to become $\delta+$ and the other $\delta-$. Hope this helps.

3. ### himanshu121

658
u should know the electronegative value and the shape/structure of the compound

for eg in SO3 u have planar triangular structure with angle 1200 so the dipoles which are vector quantity gets cancelled and u have dipole moment=0

The direction of dipole moment is from + to - direction

4. ### nautica

0
Intermolecular Force.

These are in order of strongest weakest, and the H bonding is only 5% as stong as an acutal bond.

1. Hydrogen Bonding (water molecules)
2. Dipole Moment (polar molecules)
3. London Forces (extremely week but interesting)

Nautica

5. ### Dr.Brain

541
Man..what has Hydrogen Bonding to do with dipole????

See Dipole moment is donated by ::: u

And u can claculate net ""U"" of a compound by taking resultant of different u's of different bonds...

Like in SO3...calculate net "u" of SO SO SO .....as three O are bonded to single S..... use parallelogram law vector method if u know the angle between the bonds....by knowing type of hybridization.

6. ### nautica

0
Has everything to do with it. They are both intermolecular forces which dictate melting points, boiling points, ect.... I just figured you would like to know what they would be compared to, but I guess I was wrong.

Nautica

7. ### JPJ

1
Hi folk
May be anybody knows where I can found information (research articles) about transition dipole moments in quinone like molecules, especially in benzoquinone, phylloquinone , menaquinone. Someone told that these study already done, but I found nothing in search engines.

JPJ

8. ### Monique

4,700
Staff Emeritus
Hi JPJ, did you try: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed it is where all the published peer-reviewed articles get collected.. usually they are biology oriented so it might not be found there though.. :S

Um.. otherwise I wouldn't know from the top of my head..

9. ### iluvsr20s

13
If you have to draw out the Lewis structures for each of them, it will help you see it better at first, and then its all about the electronegativity.

Sorry this is a question of pure laziness but is SO2 linear bent, i just thought that that was the only way the problem would work since the SO3 has a zero dipole moment.

Last edited: Mar 31, 2004
10. ### Beren

133
Yeah, SO2 is linear bent, because of the lone pair.

11. ### 2Pac

37
Hydrogen bonding occurs in any molecule that has Hydrogen bonded with F, O, Cl and S too i belive.

A hydrogen bond can be thought of as a "super dipole" as it is just that; a dipole high strength dipole bond

In order to answer your question you must draw the lewis structures for all the atoms.

a) SO2 (it is non polar so contains dipole. the SO3 is polar)

b) IF (the attraction between I and F is stronger than I and Cl)

c) SF4 (again by drawing the lewis structures you can determine that SF4 is polar and SiF4 is not)

d) H20 (stronger dipole moment)