Chemistry: Covalent Bonding

Covalent Bonding

The chapter that I am talking about in this essay is called Covalent Bonding. Helium and neon, which are noble gases, exist as uncombined atoms. The noble gases are monatomic; they consist of single atoms, however, not all elements are monatomic. For example a key component of the liquid you drink is water, H2O. As you might guess from the chemical formula, H2O represents two atoms of hydrogen in a molecule of water. There’s another atom of oxygen, but the number one is omitted from a chemical formula. “For example, water (H2O) is a liquid at room temperature. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are both gases at room temperature. The attractions that hold together the atoms in O2H2O, CO2, and N2O cannot be explained

A covalent bond, which is also called a molecular bond, is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms. “In a covalent bond, a tug of war for electrons takes place between the atoms, bonding the atoms together.”(Wilbraham et al 237). “The representative units shown for oxygen nitrous oxide are called molecules.”(Wilbraham et al, 237). A group of atoms that are bonded together is as molecule. It represents the smallest fundamental unit of a chemical compound that can take part in a chemical reaction. Nitrogen gas consists of nitrogen molecules; each nitrogen molecule consists of two covalently bonded nitrogen atoms. A nitrogen molecule is an example of a diatomic molecule. A diatomic molecule is a molecule that contains two atoms. “A compound composed of molecules is called a molecular compound, or sometimes called a covalent compound. H2O is a great example of a molecular compound because it is made of two atoms. Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O). “A molecular formula is the chemical formula of a molecular compound.”(Wilbraham et al,

However, the formulas describes different representative units. The representative unit of a molecular compound is a molecule. For an ionic compound, the representative unit is a formula unit.”(Wilbraham et al, 238). Table salt is an example of an ionic compound. Sodium and chlorine ions come together to form sodium chloride, or NaCl.

When metals react with non-metals, electrons are transferred from the metal atoms to the non-metal atoms, forming ions. The resulting compound is called an ionic compound. Consider reactions between metals and non-metals, for example: Sodium + chlorine → sodium chloride. “In covalent bonds, electron sharing usually occurs so that atoms attain the electron configurations of noble gases. For example, a single hydrogen atom has one electron. But a pair of hydrogen atoms shares electrons to form a covalent bond in a diatomic hydrogen molecule.”(Wilbraham et al, 240).

A single covalent bond is when only one pair of electrons is shared between atoms. Hydrogen gas consists of diatomic molecules which has atoms that only share one pair of electrons and form a single covalent bond. A double covalent bond is a bond that contains two shared pairs of electrons. Comparably, a bond created by sharing three pairs of electrons is a triple covalent