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Chemical bonding

Atoms gain or lose electrons to form ionic bonds or share electrons to form covalent bonds, in order for the atom to
reach a more stable configuration, i.e. stable octet in the valence shell of the atoms. Noble gases possess these stable
configurations and therefore do not react to form compounds.
Ionic bonding
Ions are formed by the transfer of electrons from one atom to another of a different element, where one atom
donates there excess electrons to the other.
Atoms that have lost or gained electrons are called ions and they carry an electric charge. Metals form positively
charged ions, called cations and non-metals form negatively charged ions, called anions
The electrostatic attraction between a cation and an anion is called an ionic bond, which results in the formation
of an ionic compound.
In order for an ionic compound to form, one atom needs to have an excess of electrons required to reach a stable
configuration, while another atom needs to have a deficiency of electrons required to reach a stable configuration.
As a result ionic bonding almost always involved metals bonded with non-metals.
Ionic compounds are crystalline solids, unless dissolved in water as an aqueous solution, where the ionic bonds are
broken, because the ions have a tendency to bond towards the different atoms of the water molecules.
Covalent bonding
Atoms can also gain stable electron configurations through the sharing of electrons.
his type of chemical bond formed by sharing electrons is called a covalent bond and occurs only between two
non-metals (which both have a deficiency of electrons required to reach a stable electron configuration)
Non-metals can share electrons to form covalent compounds, or in the case where one atom of an element shares
with another atom of the other element forms diatomic molecules and so on.
Covalent bonding is stronger than ionic bonding (although the forces between individual molecules are very weak).
Metallic bonding
The bonding between metals, e.g. iron (Fe), gold (Au) and calcium (Ca), is called metallic bonding. All metals are
solid at 25C except mercury (Hg), which is liquid. The result of this is that valence electrons are delocalised
resulting in a metals being able to conduct electricity.
Bonding and properties
The behaviour of which atoms and ions bond to one another is responsible for the properties of the resulting
compound, and results in very distinct structures, where atoms arrange themselves in particular arrays.
The melting point and boiling point of the compound is determined by the strength of the forces between each
compound (or molecule) entity, rather than the forces within the molecule or compound.
The different elements in a compound determine not only its structure, but also its shape, size and behaviour.
In particular certain compounds are known to be acidic (behaving like an acid) or basic (behaving like a base),
depending on the elements composed in the compound.
In the case of oxides, non-metal oxides are usually acidic for example carbon dioxide CO
2
, while metal oxides are
usually basic, such as lithium oxide Li
2
O.
The strength of bonding also determines electrical conductivity. Since only metals (and graphite), have free
electrons, they can conduct electricity. Ionic compounds can only conduct electricity, when the ionic bonds are
broken.

Lewis electron dot diagrams


Electron Dot Diagrams or Lewis Dot Diagrams are a simple way of showing the arrangement of valence
electrons in atoms and when bonds are formed between atoms.
Ionic Compounds:

Covalent Compounds and Molecules:

Another way of showing the bonding arrangement in molecules is to draw the structural formulae where a dash is
used to represent a bonding pair of electrons:

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