6.1.9

Ionic and Metallic Bonding

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Giant Structures and Ionic and Metallic Bonding

Compounds with ionic and metallic bonding form giant structures. These structures lead to specific properties of ionic and metallic compounds.

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Ionic Compounds

  • Ionic compounds form giant ionic lattice structures.
    • These are held together by strong electrostatic forces (called ionic bonds) between oppositely charged ions.
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Properties of ionic compounds

  • Giant ionic lattice structures have very high melting and boiling points because lots of energy is required to break ionic bonds.
  • When solid, the ions in a giant ionic lattice are fixed in place.
    • This means that charges cannot flow, so electricity cannot be conducted.
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Metallic bonding

  • Metals are made of giant structures of regularly arranged atoms.
  • The structure is a regular lattice of positive ions (cations) in a ‘sea’ of delocalised electrons.
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Delocalised electrons

  • Delocalised electrons in compounds with metallic bonding are not bound to an atom and are free to move around within the lattice.
  • Delocalisation happens because metal atoms have a small number of electrons in their outer shells.
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Metals as conductors

  • Metals are good conductors of electricity because their delocalised electrons can carry a charge through the structure.
  • The electrons move from the negative terminal to the positive terminal.
  • The same delocalised electrons can also carry heat energy through the structure.

Jump to other topics

1States of Matter

2Elements, Compounds & Mixtures

3Atomic Structure

4The Periodic Table

5Chemical Formulae, Equations & Calculations

6Bonding

7Electrolysis

8Groups of the Periodic Table

9The Atmosphere

10Reactivity Series

11Metal Extraction

12Acids & Alkalis

13Chemical Tests

14Physical Chemistry

15Organic Chemistry

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