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Topic: Why Aluminium fluoride is ionic while aluminium chloride is covalent?  (Read 11438 times)

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Offline Ligander

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 Is there any explanation other then based of electronegativity difference?

Offline BluRay

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Re: Why Aluminium fluoride is ionic while aluminium chloride is covalent?
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2010, 12:34:39 PM »
Is there any explanation other then based of electronegativity difference?
It also depend on the energy of the ionic lattice: the formation of th ionic net is favoured if  its energy is high (this, in turn, depends on the ionic radii, the ionic charges and on te coordination number):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_energy

Said in simplistic terms: if two binary compounds, let's say (two random compounds) AlF3 and BaO, have the same electronegativity difference, but we could presume the second ionic lattice to be more stable because (...computations...) it would have greater energy, then we can be sure the second compound would be more probable ionic than the first.

Offline Ligander

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