Concept introduced by L. Pauling as the
power of an atom to attract electrons to itself. There are several definitions of this quantity. According to Mulliken it is the average of the
ionization energy and
electron affinity of an atom, but more frequently a relative scale due to Pauling is used where dimensionless relative electronegativity differences are defined on the basis of
bond dissociation energies,
, expressed in electronvolts:
The scale is chosen so as to make the relative electronegativity of hydrogen
.
The sign of the square root was chosen intuitively by Pauling.
Source:
PAC, 1994, 66, 1077
(Glossary of terms used in physical organic chemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 1994))
on page 1111
Cite as:
IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997). XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8.
doi:10.1351/goldbook.
![χ r A − χ r B = eV − 1 2 E d AB − 1 2 [ E d AA + E d BB ]](/web/20150919175047im_/http://goldbook.iupac.org/MathML/E01990-1.png)
