COVALENT & IONIC BONDING

By: Louish Oriel Victorio

Chemical compounds are formed by joining two or more atoms. A stable compound occurs when the total energy of the combination has lower energy thank the separated atoms. The bound state implies a net attractive force between the atomsa chemical bond. There are two extreme cases of chemical bonds are Ionic bonding and covalent bonding.

Ionic Bonding
An ionic bond is formed by the attraction of oppositely charged atoms or groups of atoms. When an atom (or group of atoms) gains or loses one or more electrons, it forms an ion. Ions have either a net positive or net negative charge. Positively charged ions are attracted to the negatively charged 'cathode' in an electric field and are called cations. Anions are negatively charged ions named as a result of their attraction to the positive 'anode' in an electric field. Every ionic chemical bond is made up of at least one cation and one anion. Ionic bonding is typically described to students as being the outcome of the transfer of electron(s) between two dissimilar atoms.

.In this example, the Sodium molecule is transferring its 1 valence electron to the Chlorine molecule. This is an example of ionic bonding. After transferring 1 valence electron to the chlorine molecule, the chlorine molecule is now stable.

In this example, the Magnesium molecule is donating both of its valence electrons to Chlorine molecules. Each Chlorine molecule can only accept 1 electron before it can achieve its noble gas configuration; therefore, 2 molecules of Chlorine is required to accept the 2 electrons donated by the Magnesium.

Covalent bonding
Covalent bonding is the sharing of electrons between atoms. This type of bonding occurs between two of the same element or elements close to each other in the periodic table. This bonding occurs primarily between nonmetals; however, it can also be observed between nonmetals and metals as well.

In this example, a Phosphorous molecule is sharing its 3 unpaired electrons with 3 Chlorine atoms. In the end product, all four of these molecules have 8 valence electrons and satisfy the octet rule.