Does CF4 have a polar bond?

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Answer 1 · 2016-01-04T02:13:43

#"CF"_4# has four polar bonds.

The carbon atom is #sp^3# hybridized, with the four #"C-F"# bonds pointing towards the corners of a tetrahedron.

Each #"C-F"# bond is polar, because #"F"# is much more electronegative than #"C"#.

Nevertheless, the #"CF"_4# molecule is nonpolar, because the individual bond dipoles sum to zero.

To see why this is so, let's consider the bond dipoles two at a time.

The two #"C-F"# bond dipoles that are not in the plane of the paper (the wedge and dash) have a resultant in the plane of the paper.

One resultant

The other two bond dipoles also have a resultant of equal magnitude in the plane of the paper but in the opposite direction.

Two resultants

The two vectors are at 180 ° to each other, and their vector sum is zero.