I will have to say that this statement is true
The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system's mass cannot change, so quantity cannot be added nor removed. Hence, the quantity of mass is conserved over time.
The law implies that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, or the entities associated with it may be changed in form. For example, in chemical reactions, the mass of the chemical components before the reaction is equal to the mass of the components after the reaction. Thus, during any chemical reaction and low-energy thermodynamic processes in an isolated system, the total mass of the reactants, or starting materials, must be equal to the mass of the products.
According to the Law of Conservation, all atoms of the reactant(s) must equal the atoms of the product(s).
As a result, we need to balance chemical equations. We do this by adding in coefficients to the reactants and/or products. The compound(s) itself/themselves DOES NOT CHANGE.
To know this you pretty much do have to kind of memorize a few electronegativities. I don't recall ever getting a table of electronegativities on an exam.
From the structure, you have:
I remember the following electronegativities most because they are fairly patterned:
EN
H
=
2.1
EN
C
=
2.5
EN
N
=
3.0
EN
O
=
3.5
EN
F
=
4.0
EN
Cl
=
3.5
Notice how carbon through fluorine go in increments of
~
0.5
. I believe Pauling made it that way when he determined electronegativities in the '30s.
Δ
EN
C
−
Cl
=
1.0
Δ
EN
C
−
H
=
0.4
Δ
EN
C
−
C
=
0.0
Δ
EN
C
−
O
=
1.0
Δ
EN
O
−
H
=
1.4
So naturally, with the greatest electronegativity difference of
4.0
−
2.5
=
1.5
, the
C
−
F
bond is most polar, i.e. that bond's electron distribution is the most drawn towards the more electronegative compound as compared to the rest.
When the electron distribution is polarized and drawn towards a more electronegative atom, the less electronegative atom has to move inwards because its nucleus was previously favorably attracted to the electrons from the other atom.
That means generally, the greater the electronegativity difference between two atoms is, the shorter you can expect the bond to be, insofar as the electronegative atom is the same size as another comparable electronegative atom.
However, examining actual data, we would see that on average, in conditions without other bond polarizations occuring:
r
C
−
Cl
≈
177 pm
r
C
−
C
≈
154 pm
r
C
−
O
≈
143 pm
r
C
−
F
≈
135 pm
r
C
−
H
≈
109 pm
r
O
−
H
≈
96 pm
So it is not necessarily the least electronegativity difference that gives the longest bond.
Therefore, you cannot simply consider electronegativity. Examining the radii of the atoms, you should notice that chlorine is the biggest atom in the compound.
r
Cl
≈
79 pm
r
C
≈
70 pm
r
H
≈
53 pm
r
O
≈
60 pm
So assuming the answer is truly
C
−
C
, what would have to hold true is that:
The
C
−
F
bond polarization makes the carbon more electropositive (which is true).
The now more electropositive carbon wishes to attract bonding pairs from chlorine closer, thereby shortening the
C
−
Cl
bond, and potentially the
C
−
H
bond (which is probably true).
The shortening of the
C
−
Cl
bond is somehow enough to be shorter than the
C
−
C
bond (this is debatable).
B
. They are large and occur at shallow depths near the where the plates diverge.
