Why do dipoles cancel out?

1 Answer
anor277
Nov 19, 2017

Well, not all of them do.....

Explanation:

Dipoles are vector quantities...and they have magnitude and direction, and are thus summed geometrically. The carbon dioxide molecule is definitely a species where there is charge separation between the carbon and the oxygen bonds....

""^(-delta)O=stackrel(delta+)C=O^(delta-)...but given the linear structure of this molecule /_O-C-O=180^@, the bond dipoles cancel out upon vector addition and to give a ZERO resultant, and CO_2 is thus non-polar. For ""^(+delta)H-stackrel(delta-)O-H^(delta+), whose structure is bent, /_H-O-H=104^@, and the dipoles DO NOT geometrically sum to zero. Water is thus a polar molecule....

Related questions
See all questions in Dipoles
Impact of this question
3128 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License