Saturday, July 1, 2017

polarity - Why H2O2's molecular geometry is what it is...?



I came up with this question when I was trying to determine whether H2O2 is polar or not.


H2O2 looks like this when looked parallel to oxygen-oxygen bound:(source: Pubchem) -


Each hydrogen is in one of the three positions available around each oxygen(the two nonbonding electron pairs occupy the other two); even the oxygen-oxygen bound can rotate to set hydrogens in any position relative to each other. Therefore I don't see the problem in following nonpolar structure(pretty neat!)


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What concept am I missing while determining molecular geometry?


Is a H2O2 molecule sometimes polar and sometimes nonpolar?


Thanks for your help!




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