Question

Which elements have high electronegativity in the periodic table?

Answer 1

Hint: We need to know that the electronegativity is a measure of the tendency of an atom to attract a bonding pair of electrons. Electronegativity is the property of an atom which arises from the difference between sharing of electrons within two atoms. On moving down the group, atomic size increases.

Complete answer:
Let’s see what the tendency of having high electronegativity values is. The higher value of electro negativity will lead to more sharing of attracted atoms in an element. We measure electronegativity on several scales. The most commonly used scale was designed by Linus Pauling. According to this scale, fluorine is the most electronegative element with a value of $4.0$ and cesium is the least electronegative element with a value of $0.7$. Usually nonmetals will have a high value of electronegativity. Since alkali metals and alkaline earth metals are electropositive in nature due to which they form cation while on the other hand non-metals generally gain an electron a forms anion due to which they are electronegative in nature. The Halogen family i.e. group $17$ in the periodic table has only one electron less to attain a stable electronic configuration or noble gas configuration. Thus the higher value of electro negativity is seen in group $17$. Electronegativity generally decreases down the group since fluorine has small atomic radius so the value of electronegativity will be high. So we can conclude that the halogen family will have high electronegativity.

Note:
We have to know that the electronegativity and atomic size or atomic radius are inversely proportional to each other. On increasing atomic size we see a decrease in electronegativity. On increasing atomic size, the number of shells increases due to which effective nuclear charge also increases as a result atomic radius increases.