Question

What is meant by Covalent Radius?

Answer 1

In order to answer this question, first we will explain the Covalent Radius and then we will also express it numerically. We will also discuss more about the Covalent radius. And atlast we will compare between covalent radius and the van der waals radius.

Complete answer:
The covalent radius of an element is equal to one-half of the covalent bond distance of a molecule in which the atoms involved are singly bonded. In other terms, it is half the distance between the nuclei of two identical atoms connected by a single covalent connection.
The covalent radius, abbreviated as ${r_{\operatorname{cov} }}$ , is a measurement of the size of an atom in a covalent bond. Picometres (pm) or angstroms, with $1\mathop A\limits^ \circ = 100{\text{ }}pm$ , are the most common units of measurement.
The total of the two covalent radii should, in theory, equal the length of a covalent bond between two atoms, $R\left( {AB} \right) = r\left( A \right) + r\left( B \right)$ . In a purely operational sense, multiple radii can be added for single, double, and triple bonds $\left( {r1,{\text{ }}r2,{\text{ }}and{\text{ }}r3} \right)$ . Because the size of an atom varies depending on its chemical surroundings, these equations are far from accurate. Ionic terms may be present in heteroatomic $A-B{\text{ }}bonds$ . The polar covalent bonds are frequently shorter than the sum of covalent radii would suggest. Covalent radii tabulated values are either average or idealised values, but they do have some transferability between situations, which makes them helpful.
The value of an atom's "covalent radius" can be related to it. The sum of the covalent radii of the participating atoms approximates the length of a bond.

Note:
It's half the distance between the nuclei of two identical atoms joined by a single covalent bond. The elements' covalent radius is smaller than their van der Waals radius.
The van der Waals radius and the covalent radius are two different types of radius. When dealing with non-bound atoms, the former is employed, whereas when dealing with covalently bonded atoms, the latter is utilised.