BONDING

COVALENT AND IONIC COMPOUNDS

Chemical Bond

is the force of attraction that holds two atoms or ions together.

Why do atoms or ions form chemical bonds?

Atoms are trying to reach the most stable (lowest-energy) state that they can.

Many atoms become stable when their valence shell is filled with electrons or when they satisfy the octet rule
(by having eight valence electrons).

VALENCE ELECTRON

❑ The outermost electrons, known as valence electrons, play a crucial role in determining an atom's
reactivity and stability.

❑ For many atoms, having a full outer electron shell corresponds to a specific number of valence
electrons.

❑ Atoms gain or lose electrons to reach this stable electron configuration, resulting in the formation of
ions.
How to determine the Valence Electrons
OCTET RULE

❑ Many atoms, especially those in the main group elements, tend to gain, lose, or share electrons to
achieve a stable electron configuration similar to the noble gases.

❑ The noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon) have full outer electron shells, making
them highly stable and unreactive.

❑ This tendency to achieve a stable electron configuration is known as the octet rule.

Why do atoms form chemical bonds?

If atoms don't have this arrangement, they'll "want" to reach it by gaining, losing, or sharing electrons via
bonds.

Two types of Chemical Bonds

❑ Ionic Bonds

❑ Covalent Bonds

Ion formation and Ionic Bonds

 ❑ Some atoms become more stable by gaining or losing an entire electron (or several electrons).
When they do so, atoms form ions, or charged particles.

❑ Electron gain or loss can give an atom a filled outermost electron shell and make it energetically more
stable.

❑ Ions come in two types: Cations are positive ions formed by losing electrons. Negative ions are
formed by electron gain and are called anions. Anions are named using the ending "- ide": for example, the
anion of chlorine is called chloride.

❑ When one atom loses an electron and another atom gains that electron, the process is called
electron transfer.

Sodium and chlorine atoms provide a good example of electron transfer

❑ Sodium (Na) only has one electron in its outer electron shell, so it is easier (more energetically
favorable for sodium to donate that one electron than to find seven more electrons to fill the outer shell.
Because of this, sodium tends to lose its one electron, forming Na.

❑ Chlorine (CI), on the other hand, has seven electrons in its outer shell. In this case, it is easier for
Chlorine to gain one electron than to lose seven, so it tends to take on an electron and become Cl-

Ionic Bonds

❑ Ilonic bonds form when electrons are transferred between atoms, leading to the formation of
positively and negatively charged ions.

❑ The attractive force between these oppositely charged ions results in the creation of an ionic
compound.

❑ lonic bonding is typically observed between metals and nonmetals.

Covalent Bonds

❑ Another way atoms can become more stable is by sharing electrons (rather than fully gaining or
losing them), thus forming covalent bonds.

❑ In covalent bonds, atoms share electrons to fill their respective outer shells, creating a more stable
overall structure. This is commonly observed in molecules formed by nonmetals.

❑ Covalent bonds are more common than ionic bonds in the molecules of living organisms. Example,
covalent bonds are key to the structure of carbon- based organic molecules like our DNA and proteins.

Covalent bonds are also found in smaller inorganic molecules, such as H₂O, CO2, and O2.

❑ One, two, or three pairs of electrons may be shared between atoms, resulting in single, double, or
triple bonds, respectively.

❑ The more electrons that are shared between two atoms, the stronger their bond will be.

As an example of covalent bonding, let’s look at water.

A single water molecule, H₂O, consists of two hydrogen atoms banded to one oxygen atom. Each hydrogen
shares an electron with oxygen, and oxygen shares one of its electrons with each hydrogen
Two types of Covalent Bonds

❑ Polar

❑ Nonpolar

Polar Covalent Bonds

❑ In a polar covalent bond, the electrons are unequally shared by the atoms and spend more time
close to one atom than the other.

❑ Because of the unequal distribution of electrons between the atoms of different elements, slightly
positive (δ+) and slightly negative (8-) charges develop in different parts of the molecule.

❑ In a water molecule (example), the bond connecting the oxygen to each hydrogen is a polar bond.

❑ Oxygen is a much more electronegative atom than hydrogen, meaning that it attracts shared
electrons more strongly, so the oxygen of water bears a partial negative charge (has high electron density),
while the hydrogens bear partial positive charges (have low electron density)

❑ In general, the relative electronegativities of the two atoms in a bond - that is, their tendencies to
"hog" shared electrons - will determine whether a covalent bond is polar or nonpolar.

❑ Whenever one element is significantly more electronegative than the other, the bond between them
will be polar, meaning that one end of it will have a slight positive charge and the other a slight negative
charge.

Nonpolar Covalent Bonds

❑ Nonpolar covalent bonds form between two atoms of the same element, or between atoms of
different elements that share electrons more or less equally.

❑ For example, molecular oxygen (O2) is nonpolar because the electrons are equally shared between
the two oxygen atoms.

Lewis Dot Structure

❑ The Lewis Dot Theory, was introduced

by American chemist Gilbert N. Lewis in 1916, is a
simple and effective way to represent the bonding
in a molecule using the symbol of the element
and dots to represent valence electrons.

❑ The theory focuses on the outermost

(valence) electrons of atoms and their
involvement in the formation of chemical bonds.
Rules for Drawing Lewis Dot Structure

1. Count the number of valence electron.

2. Identify the central atom (first element written). Place the terminal atoms

around that atom.

3. Complete the octet for all atoms in Lewis structure with lone pairs of electrons.

4. Check your structure by counting the number of valence electron used.

EXAMPLE: CH4
1. Count the number of valence electron.

Carbon= 4 valence electron

Hydrogen= 1 valence electron

2. Identify the central atom (first element written). Place the terminal atoms around that atom.

Central atom: Carbon