What is the Difference Between Covalent Radius and Metallic Radius? However, we should not confuse covalent radiant with covalent distance, which is the total distance between the atomic nuclei of two atoms. Moreover, the values for this measurement are in picometer (pm) or angstrom scale. There, we can determine the radius by taking the average of bond distances between atoms in each allotrope. Sometimes, we may have to measure the covalent radius for chemical elements having multiple allotropes. Generally, we measure this value using X-ray diffraction methods. That means the covalent radius is equal to the half of the distance between two homonuclear atomic nuclei and these atoms have a single covalent bond between them. Side by Side Comparison – Covalent Radius vs Metallic Radius in Tabular FormĬovalent radius is half of the internuclear separation between the nuclei of two single-bonded atoms of the same species. The key difference between covalent radius and metallic radius is that the covalent radius is half the distance between two homonuclear atoms that are in a covalent bond, whereas the metallic radius is half the distance between two adjacent metal ions in a metallic structure.īoth covalent radius and metallic radius are half the distances between atomic nuclei in covalent radius, we consider atoms of the same chemical element having a single covalent bond between them, while in metallic radius, we consider adjacent metal ions.

Radius vs steel faith