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Chemistry LibreTexts

9: Chemical Bonding

  • Page ID
    98501
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    • 9.1: The Bonding Spectrum
    • 9.2: Ionic Bonding and Lattice Energy
      The amount of energy needed to separate a gaseous ion pair is its bond energy. The formation of ionic compounds are usually extremely exothermic. The strength of the electrostatic attraction between ions with opposite charges is directly proportional to the magnitude of the charges on the ions and inversely proportional to the internuclear distance.
    • 9.3: Covalent Bonding
      Covalent bonds form when electrons are shared between atoms and are attracted by the nuclei of both atoms. In pure covalent bonds, the electrons are shared equally. In polar covalent bonds, the electrons are shared unequally, as one atom exerts a stronger force of attraction on the electrons than the other. The ability of an atom to attract a pair of electrons in a chemical bond is called its electronegativity.
    • 9.4: Bond Strength and Energy
      The strength of a covalent bond is measured by its bond dissociation energy, that is, the amount of energy required to break that particular bond in a mole of molecules. Multiple bonds are stronger than single bonds between the same atoms. Reaction enthalpies can be estimated based on the energy input required to break bonds and the energy released when new bonds are formed. For ionic bonds, the lattice energy is the energy required to separate one mole of a compound into its gas phase ions.
    • 9.5: Metallic Bonding
      A strong metallic bond will be the result of more delocalized electrons, which causes the effective nuclear charge on electrons on the cation to increase, in effect making the size of the cation smaller. Metallic bonds are strong and require a great deal of energy to break, and therefore metals have high melting and boiling points. A metallic bonding theory must explain how so much bonding can occur with such few electrons (since metals are located on the left side of the periodic table and do


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