Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Undergraduate General Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: gwen on March 27, 2004, 01:20:04 PM
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Please help. In pauling scale for electronegativities,i thought that among the metals the bigger the pauling scale the less reactive the metal is. The pauling scale for Pb is 2.33, Pt 2.28,
Au 2.54, Ni 1.91, Cu 1.90. From what I have been taught ,copper is less reactive than lead but why is the pauling scale for lead higher than copper? Isnt nickel more reactive than copper? But the scale for nickel is higher than copper. Could some 1 explain to me the relevance of these scales in terms of their chemical reactivities? Thank you.
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Pauling Scale is a measure of electronegativty. The more electronegative an element is, the stronger is its attraction for electrons localised inside a covalent bond. This leads to a stronger covalent bond (and subsequently polar). Hence, Pauling Scale may be used as a measure of reactivity for non-metals.
Metal's reactivity is dependent on their electropositivity. The easier for a metal to lose electrons, the more reactive it is. This is, in fact, in reverse nature to electronegativity. Hence, a metal with lower value in the Pauling Scale is more reactive than another metal with a higher value in the Pauling Scale :D