Dipole moment converter
Convert dipole moment between debye and SI coulomb-meters, the measure of how lopsided a molecule’s charge is.
That's about the same as water. That is a whole electron charge separated by about 38.52 picometers.
What it means
How polar is that?
These are gas-phase molecular dipole moments. In a liquid, neighboring molecules polarize each other and the effective value is larger.
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Your dipole moment in every unit
Learn
Three things worth knowing
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1 D = 3.336 × 10⁻³⁰ C·m
Or 0.2082 electron-ångströms. A whole electron charge one ångström from a proton would be 4.8 D.
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Named for Peter Debye
He won the 1936 Nobel Prize for using dipole moments to work out molecular shapes, long before anyone could see a molecule.
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Symmetry cancels it
Carbon dioxide has two strongly polar bonds and a dipole moment of exactly zero, because they point opposite ways. Polar bonds do not make a polar molecule.
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Background
About the debye
A dipole moment is charge times separation. The SI unit, the coulomb-meter, is hopeless at molecular scale, so chemistry uses the debye: 3.336 × 10⁻³⁰ C·m, which is roughly what you get by separating an electron charge by 0.2 ångströms.
Water is 1.85 D, and that single number explains most of what water does.