What type of intermolecular force would water molecules have? London dispersion? Dipole dipole? Or hydrogen bonding?
1 Answer
May 28, 2014
Actually, water has all three types of intermolecular forces, with the strongest being hydrogen bonding.
All things have London dispersion forces...the weakest interactions being temporary dipoles that form by shifting of electrons within a molecule.
Water, having hydrogen bound to an oxygen (which is much more electronegative than hydrogen, thus not sharing those bonded electrons very nicely) form dipoles of a special type called hydrogen bonds.
Whenever hydrogen is bonded to N, O or F, the dipoles are so large that they have their own special name....hydrogen bonding. So, water has london dispersion (as all elements do) and hydrogen bonding, which is a special strong version of a dipole dipole.
