How can you tell if a chemical bond is covalent or ionic purely from the molecular formula?
Ionic bond is formed between metals and non metals where the difference in electronegativity is higher than 1.7 as CaCl2 3 (Cl) – 1 (Ca) = 2 so it’s ionic bond while covalent bond is formed between two non metals where the difference in electronegativity is less than 1.7 like HCl 3 (Cl) – 2.1 (H) = 0.9 so it’s covalent but if it’s found between two similar non metals having the same electronegativity so the difference is 0 here it’s called pure covalent like H2 1-1 = 0 if the difference is less than or equal 0.5 so its non-polar covalent like most of the organic compounds CH4 2.5 (C) – 2.1 (H) = 0.4 but if the difference is higher than 0.5 so it’s polar covalent like HCl hope i helped 😀
