Covalent_Bonds

Covalent Bonds Covalent and Ionic Bonds By Andrej Petrovski Ionic Bonds An ionic bond is an electrical attraction between two oppositely charged atoms or groups of atoms. Normally, atoms are neutral and have no charge. However, in order to gain stability they will sacrifice their neutrality by either losing one or more of its outermost electrons thus becoming a positive ion (cation) or they will gain one or more electrons thus becoming a negative ion (anion). Elements that are described as "metallic" tend to lose electrons, and elements that are described as "non-metallic" tend to gain electrons. Once this has happened then the resulting charged atoms will attract each other. That electrical attraction between two oppositely charged ions is referred to as an ionic bond. Most salts are ionic, for example ordinary table salt, which is known as Sodium Chloride (NaCl). Sodium is the metal and the chlorine is a non-metal. Any metal will combine chemically with any non-metal to form ionic bonds that hold the molecule together. So we could simply say that ionic bonding takes place between a metal and a non metal where the metal has the positive charge and the non-metal has the negative charge, thus causing the attraction. electrons, covalent, ionic, between, atoms, metal, bonding, two, bonds, one, non-metal, each, thus, molecule, gain, elements, charged, charge, bond, attraction, valence, type, try, transfer, tend, sodium, sharing, share, positive, pair, originally, oppositely, negative, list, ion, example, electron, electrical, described, becoming, atom, words, water, together, talking, takes, table, that, systems, sum