Relationship of Dielectric constant with ionic bond

How is dielectric constant related to formation of ionic bond?




You are probably referring to Coulomb's Law:


$${F\propto \frac{q\_1 q\_2}{d^2 \epsilon }}$$


This law, that you probably already met in physics, applies to chemistry and ionic bonds, since they are all characterized by electrostatic interactions.


You see that the strenght of a ionic bond is directly proportional to the product of the charges on the ions, inversely proportional to the square of their distance, and **inversely proportional** to the **dielectric constant** of the solvent. In vacuum, the dielectric constant is $\epsilon = 1$.


Otherwise, when the ions are in a solvent, the dielectric constant is associated to the solvent in use (you can find appropriate charts online).


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