Revisiting Electronegativity and Electronegativity Scales

The concepts of electronegativity and classical electronegativity scales are briefly described. Electronegativity scales have practical quantitative applications, and this work suggests activities which can assist students select the scales for use in chemistry applications. It provided examples of the use of an appropriate electronegativity scale, for estimating bond lengths, bond dissociation energies, and dipole moments. Expressions are introduced for estimating internuclear distances in ionic, covalent, and intermetallic compounds and bond dissociation energies. Estimated values of bond lengths, bond energies, and dipole moments using different electronegativity scales are compared with experimental values and show that the levels of performance are not the same for different electronegativity scales. Additional proposed activities are included.