Question

1) Describe in your own words what are the van der Waals interactions, what is the van der Waals radii? What is the relation between the preferred distance of interacting non polar molecules and the sum of their van der Waals radii?

Answer 1

This is a great question because I feel there is a lot to talk about here. I remember that Vanderwaals forces are the sum of the attractive+ repulsive forces in a molecule. @Woodward this question is definitely something that would interest you.

Answer 2

When two atoms that belong to the same element which is not chemically bonded are brought as close as possible without forming a bond (when they're in their solid state) half the distance between the 2 nuclei is known as the vander waal's radius. If the distance is d, The radius is d/2

Answer 3

As to what I can remember this is the definition @Woodward What do u think ? And I guess this takes a larger value than the covalent radius right?

Answer 4

Van der Waals forces are driven by induced electrical interactions between two or more atoms or molecules that are very close to each other.