Ionic Character and the Dipole Moment of Chemical Bonds. Calculations of the Dipole Moment of HCl

Abstract

The method of assigning the ionic character of chemical bonds by the use of the dipole moment is examined for the case of hydrogen chloride. Using both the atomic orbital and the LCAO molecular orbital approximation, the ionic character of HCl is calculated. Not only do the values so calculated seem unreasonable from energy considerations, but the calculated rate of change of dipole moment with respect to internuclear distance does not agree with the experimentally observed infra‐red intensity. This discrepancy is due to the large dipole moment associated with the covalent bond. Although the results for a purely covalent compound are in agreement both with the dipole moment, and the infra‐red intensity, if the dipole is assumed to have the orientation Cl⁺H⁻, this assumption is discredited by the fact that one would have to assume more ionic character for HBr than HCl. If we make the assumption that s—p hybridization occurs, these difficulties are removed. It is shown that the dipole moment of the purely covalent molecule is a very sensitive function of the amount of hybridization, and the covalent molecule can have almost any reasonable dipole moment. Thus it is shown that there are difficulties which must be surmounted before one can use dipole moments to obtain ionic character.