How do you know if a molecular compound has a higher boiling point than another molecular compound?
Hi Jay Gal: There are two factors that affect boiling point differences between molecular substances: 1- Intermolecular forces and Molecular Polarity: More polar molecules will have greater intermolecular forces between them, and therefore, the vapour pressure will be depressed. This will cause the boiling point to increase. This explains why alcohols have higher boiling points than the same sized hydrocarbons, and why carboxylic acids have higher boiling points than the same sized alcohols. Generally, Ionic compounds have much higher boiling points compared to molecular compounds because of the Ionic forces between ions are far larger than the Van Der Waals forces of molecular compounds. 2- Molecular Size The larger the molecule the heavier it will be so that it will take more energy to vaporize them. The vapour pressure decreases with molecular size. It is important that when you are comparing the boiling points of two substances whose molecular polarities are different that the subs
