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Topic: Is diethylether polar or non-polar?  (Read 97359 times)

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Offline Skybydo

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Is diethylether polar or non-polar?
« on: September 09, 2011, 05:08:18 PM »
In Wikipedia in the article of "solvent" diethylether is listed as a non-polar solvent. However, my professor draw it like the attached image and said it is polar.
Does it have the two properties?
How should I treat it in SN1 and SN2 reactions?

Offline Dan

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Re: Is diethylether polar or non-polar?
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2011, 06:05:02 AM »
Most organic molecules are polar by definition - they have a dipole moment (ethers included).

In the context of solvents, polar refers to solvents with higher polarity, and non-polar to solvents with lower polarity. It's relative. Diethyl ether is at the lower end of the polarity scale and so is generally considered a "non-polar" solvent - though what we really mean is a low polarity solvent.

This sliding scale situation comes up a lot in chemistry. Another example is when someone asks, "is methanol acidic?". To which the answer can only be, "compared to what?". It's all relative.
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Offline Skybydo

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Re: Is diethylether polar or non-polar?
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2011, 09:57:03 AM »
Ok, it's relative. Thank you!

msalexanderjohn

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Re: Is diethylether polar or non-polar?
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2011, 11:28:56 AM »
any molecue having atoms of different electronegativity is polar.

Offline Nosterius

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Re: Is diethylether polar or non-polar?
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2011, 11:44:25 AM »
any molecue having atoms of different electronegativity is polar.

As Dan said, you need a dipole moment to define a molecule as "polar". This definition fails short in that carbon dioxide, for example, has different atoms, but no dipole moment. Same goes for methane, CBr4, ethane, benzene etc...

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