What is the difference between electronegativity and electron affinity?

Question

What is the difference between electronegativity and electron affinity?

My book says:
electron affinity: the ability of an atom to attact additional electrons
and electronegativity: the ability of an atom to attract a bonding pair of electrons to itself when bonded to another atom.

and i can see that obviously those are two different statements and that's the difference between them, but i don't understand the differerence.

thanks

Answer 1

According to those definitions the electron affinity is to attract any electron. The electronegativity is to attract the electrons in a covalent bond between that atom and another.

The electronegativity tells which of the atoms involved in the bond will have a larger attraction for the pair of shared electrons.

Answer 2

Electronegativity And Electron Affinity

Answer 3

So , I m in 10th grade in India but well I know pretty much out of portion too. So pls don t underestimate my answer (wink wink)

To make u understand let us imagine there are two atoms hydrogen and chlorine. Experimently it is found that chlorine has the highest electron affinity.

Chlorine is highly unstable. It has a lot of energy to give out , after which it will become stable. Hydrogen has nothing but 1 electron with it , easy to remove. Now it is said that higher the EA higher the EN. So let s see how this relation comes true and by the end of it ur question will be answered.


Chlorine gives out its high energy , when hydrogen cams near it and makes the electron relectant to get out of hydrogen s shell. The electron is taken in by chlorine as the electron gets in the nearmost energy shell.
So the energy released will be called electron affinity. In the covalent bond of HCl , chlorin will obviously attract the elctron more because it used immense energy to "scoop " it out of hydrogen and so chlorine pulls the electron towards it more. If it were some weak electronegative element for eg. X then X would have used extremely little energy to have the electron " scooped " out of hydrogen and so the electron will stay somewhat between H and X.


Hope you like the explanation .

Answer 4

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What is the difference between electronegativity and electron affinity?
What is the difference between electronegativity and electron affinity?

My book says:
electron affinity: the ability of an atom to attact additional electrons
and electronegativity: the ability of an atom to attract a bonding pair of electrons to itself when bonded to another atom.

and i...

Answer 5

Electron Affinity is the energy change when an electron is added, and Electronegativity is an atoms ability to attract electrons.

Answer 6

Electron Affinity (EA) is the energy change for the reaction:
X(-1) -> X + e(-1) { X is any atom or molecule}
It is (or can be) a measured quantity.
Electronegativity (EN) is the propensity of an atom or molecule to attract the electronic charge of a covalent bond.
If you are confused, that is good. Electronegativity is by far the more useful concept of the two. BUT. Its basis is not solid. That is, Pauling invented the scale to "explain" the reason why certain results were observed. He averaged the ionization energy and the electron affinity of a bunch of atoms and found that the result roughly correlated with the strength and Nature of the Chemical Bond. His resulting scale should not be used for detailed calculations (like the sort we now do with supercomputers and Quantum Mechanics), rather it is a guide to steer you in the right direction. There are many examples of this type of "rough" rule in the sciences, especially chemistry: valence, like dissolves like are two other examples. So you are not going to get three decimal place accuracy when using them, but they are useful when you're looking at the broader, coarser view.
IUPAC defines EA but not (as far as I found) EN. The reason is that EN is somewhat arbitrary: Pauling's scale is only one of several which are NOT equivalent to one another: that is there's no (simple) formula to convert a value on one scale to a value on another (like there is for converting pounds to kilograms or degrees C to F.). Some of the values he "tweaked". Its a helpful concept that guides but doesn't prescribe.
EN can be thought of as the "pull" of one group for the electrons around another. EA can be thought of as the resulting energy difference of the one group should that "pull" be sucessful. Roughly.

Answer 7

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