Chad offers a comprehensive lesson on how to determine whether a molecule is polar or nonpolar based on its individual bonding dipoles and molecular geometry. The lesson begins with a review of electronegativity and the relative polarity of bonds. It is then shown that if the sum of the bonding dipoles in a molecule is zero (i.e. /"cancel/") then a molecule is said to be nonpolar, and a good example of this is CO2. It is then shown that if the central atom has no lone doublets and the atoms surrounding it are all the same, then it will be nonpolar (as in CO2, BCl3 and CF4). It is also shown that if the central atom has free electron pairs, it will USUALLY be polar (as in SO2, NF3 and H2O), but there are two MAJOR exceptions. If all the atoms surrounding the central atom are again identical but the molecular geometry is either square planar or linear (linear with 2 bonding electronic domains and 3 non-bonding electronic domains), then the molecule will still be nonpolar (XeF4 and XeF2 are respectively examples).

I've embedded this playlist as a lesson on my website with all lessons organized by chapter in a collapsible menu and much of the study guide content included on the page. Check out this lesson at https://www.chadsprep.com/chads-general-chemistry-videos/polarity/

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00:00 Introduction to the lesson
00:47 Review of Electronegativity
02:33 Bond polarity vs molecular polarity
08:24 CH2Cl2 is polar
11:25 CO2, BCl3 and CF4 are nonpolar
14:23 SO2, NF3 and H2O are polar
5:48 p.m. XeF4 and XeF2 are nonpolar

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