b) Ionic Bond

 You can find some in your saltshaker. In salt (sodium chloride), atoms do not share electrons. Fairly, one type of atom strips at least one valence electron from another type of atom, creating ions of opposite charges. These two oppositely charged atoms are under arrest jointly by an ELECTROSTATIC INTERACTION, an attraction among oppositely charged particles

In an ionic bond, one atom loses an electron to another atom, forming a cation and anion, respectively. And, as everyone knows, opposites attract.

An IONIC BOND is an electrostatic interaction that holds jointly a positively charged ion (cation) and a negatively charged ion (anion).

 

In table salt, for example, a valence electron from a sodium atom is transferred to a chlorine atom, forming Na+ and Cl-. As the ions have opposite charges, they are attracted to each other. The loss of a valence electron and the attraction to the atom that took it happen at the same time.

It is possible for more than one valence electron to be drawn away from another atom, as in barium chloride (BaCl2, a substance used in medicinal preparations). In barium chloride, two chlorine atoms each take one valence electron away from barium, leaving the barium ion Ba2+.

Different water or oxygen, which have covalent bonds, substances that have ionic bonds do not exist logically as discrete molecules. Rather, they form IONIC SOLIDS, three-dimensional networks in which each cation is bounded by anions and each anion is surrounded by cations.

 

See again in the saltshaker. Every one sodium cation is surrounded or ionically bonded to six chloride anions, and each chloride anion is ionically bonded to six sodium cations. The formula NaCl for sodium chloride shows that for each sodium atom present in a piece of salt, there is one chlorine atom present. What, don't observe any ionic bonds? All right, it looks like this:

Where are ionic bonds found? These types of bonds usually form while metal atoms bond with nonmetal atoms. In salt, the metal sodium bonds with the nonmetal chlorine. Besides salt, some other examples are lithium fluoride (LiF), strontium oxide (SrO) and calcium chloride (CaCl2).

Notice that when sodium loses its one valence electron it gets lesser in size, at the same time as chlorine grows larger when it gains an additional valence electron. This is typical of the relative sizes of ions to atoms. Positive ions tend to be smaller than their parent atoms while negative ions tend to be superior than their parent. After the reaction takes place, the charged Na+ and Cl- ions are held together by electrostatic forces, thus forming an ionic bond. Ionic compounds share many features in ordinary:

• In naming simple ionic compounds, the metal is always first, the nonmetal second (e.g., sodium chloride).
• In solution, ionic compounds easily conduct electricity.
• Ionic bonds form between metals and nonmetals.
• Ionic compounds dissolve easily in water and other polar solvents.
• Ionic compounds tend to form crystalline solids with high melting temperatures.

This last feature, the fact that ionic compounds are solids, results from the intermolecular forces (forces between molecules) in ionic solids. If we consider a solid crystal of sodium chloride, the solid is made up of many positively charged sodium ions (pictured less than small gray spheres) and an equal number of negatively charged chlorine ions (green spheres). Due to the interaction of the charged ions, the sodium and chlorine ions are arranged in an alternating fashion as demonstrated in the schematic. Each sodium ion is attracted equally to all of its neighboring chlorine ions, and likewise for the chlorine to sodium attraction. The concept of a single molecule does not apply to ionic crystals because the solid exists as one continuous system. Ionic solids form crystals with high melting points because of the physically powerful forces between neighboring ions.