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Covalent Bond Distance, Radius and van der Waals Radius

  • Page ID
    1986
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    Covalent bond distance, covalent radius, and van der Waals radius are used to describe the size and distance between atoms. Covalent bond distance refers to the distance between the nuclei of two bonded atoms. Covalent radius is half of the internuclear separation between the nuclei of two single-bonded atoms of the same species (homonuclear). While van der Waals radius is used to define half of the distance between the closest approach of two non-bonded atoms of a given element.

    Contributors and Attributions

    • Andrew Cooley, University of California, Davis

    Covalent Bond Distance, Radius and van der Waals Radius is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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