User:Chemnerd1234

We are going to learn about bonds!

What are chemical bonds? How do they happen? Why do they happen?

A chemical bond is a bond that happens between 2 or more elements when the elements try to stabilize their electrons, depending on how many valence electrons an atom has in it, the more or less likely it is to bond with another atom.

There are three different types of bonds, ionic bonds, covalent bonds, and metallic bonds. Covalent bonds happen between non-metals, metallic bonds happen between metals, and ionic bonds happen between a metal and a non-metal.

There are 2 mayor properties that determine whether an atom can easily make a bond or not, these properties are electron affinity and ionization energy. Electron affinity is an atom’s ability to gain electrons, electron affinity increases in each element as you go up and right on the periodic table. Ionization energy is an atom’s ability to maintain or hold its electrons, it also increases in each element as you go up and to the right on a periodic table. Ex.

If I have an oxygen atom which has 8 electrons and 2 hydrogen atoms which both have 1 electron the hydrogen atoms are going to try to gain the electron they need to fill their outer shell by taking the electron from the oxygen, but because both the oxygen and the hydrogen have high electron affinity and high ionization energy they end up sharing electrons, to put it into perspective imagine 2 people with rocks in their hands and they both try to take the rocks from each other with the same strength, they will end up “sharing” the rocks because they are both pulling with the same strength, and so the result of the atoms interacting in this way creates H2O (Water)

To summarize what we have learned:

The purpose of bonds is to make an atom more stable (by filling it)

A covalent bond is between nonmetals both atoms have a high Ionization energy and electron affinity. Neither can steal electrons from the other, so they end up sharing electron. 2e makes one covalent bond. The bigger the atom the harder it is to grab the electron

Similarly, the bigger atoms tend to be more likely to lose an electron

Oppositely smaller atoms have an easier time grabbing electrons

In simpler terms smaller atoms also tend to gain electrons

Nonmetals try to gain electrons because they are smaller and able to steal them easier. They do this in an attempt to create an octet or a duet.

Ionic bonds means losing electrons not sharing electrons.

On a periodic table when going from left to right the I.E. and E.A increases whereas the atomic radius (The size) gets larger from right to left.

Increasing E.A and I.E also appears to increase when going down to up

The atomic radius means essentially the distance from the nucleus to the valence electron. The higher the atomic radius the bigger the atom and the lower the strength.

Electron Affinity is dependent upon the atomic size, nuclear charge, and electron configuration.