The bond length of the Cl-Cl bond in gaseous chlorine is approximately 199pm. In solid iodine, the I-I bond distance is?

Explanation

Option: B In solid iodine, the bond distance between I-I is 271m. The reason is simple. Iodine is two rows down, so, between chlorine and iodine, you have the subshells 4s, 3d, 4p, 5s, 4d, and finally 5p. It is a lot of electrons, which repel each other. The fact that iodine is solid has not much significance: the covalent interactions between iodine atoms are far stronger than the dispersion (London) intermolecular forces; the latter are nevertheless far stronger than in the case of chlorine because a huge number of electrons in a large space means greater polarizability, which makes it possible for iodine to be in a condensed state at room temperature. The reason why it is solid is due to the regular shape of I2 molecules (they are diatomic ones), which makes it easy to pack many molecules to yield a solid structure. Anyway, iodine sublimates very easily.