Interchalcogen


The chalcogens react with each other to form interchalcogen compounds.
Although no chalcogen is extremely electropositive, nor quite as electronegative as the halogen fluorine, there is a large difference in electronegativity between the top and bottom of the group. Combined with the fact that there is a significant trend towards increasing metallic behaviour while descending the group, this causes the interchalcogens to display many different kinds of bonding: covalent, ionic, metallic, and semimetallic.

Known binary interchalcogens

Bonding in the binary interchalcogens

Going down the above table, there is a transition from covalent bonding to ionic bonding; going across the table, there is a transition from ionic bonding to metallic bonding. For example, in the leftmost column of the table, O2 and O3 are purely covalent, SO2 and SO3 are polar molecules, SeO2 forms chained polymers, TeO2 forms layered polymers, and PoO2 is ionic with the fluorite structure ; in the bottom row of the table, PoO2 and PoS are ionic, PoxSey and PoxTey are semimetallic, and Po is metallic.

Summary of known binary interchalcogens

Sulfur chalcogenides