Practice question · True or false
Carbon dioxide contains polar bonds but has no overall dipole moment.
Hints
- Bond dipoles are vectors, what does the geometry do to them?
- Two equal dipoles pointing in exactly opposite directions cancel.
Show the answer
True
Why
True, each C=O bond is strongly polar, but the molecule is linear, so the two bond dipoles are equal and opposite and sum to zero. Geometry, not bond polarity, decides the net result.
Practise Molecular Geometry and Polarity
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