How do ionic compounds act differently from covalent bonds?

Question

I could use a little help undertstanding this question...

Answer 1

To quote my chem book:

"An ionic bond is the electrostatic force of attraction between oppositely charged  ions."

A metalic atom can transfer one or more of its outer electrons to a nonmetal atom so that the resulting ions hav noble gas structures.

For example, sodium is a metal atom and it would release one electron to, say chlorine. Now both would have the structures of a noble gas. The positive and negative ions formed are attracted to each other.

SHARING is the important word when thinking of COVALENT bonds.

A covalent bond is: the chemical bond formed when one or more pairs of outer leectrons are SHARED between two nonmetal atoms so that both achieve the same outer electronic structure as the nearest noble gas.

For instance, this SHARING can explain why Cl is a diatomic molecule, that is, it bonds with itself to form Cl2. Each chlorine atom has 7 outer electrons. If two atoms share a pair of those, each atom then has 8 outer electrons and can achieve the same outer electronic structurs as argon, Ar, the nearest noble gas.

BTW, thanks for the pts for my answer for the 3 types of carbon bonds.

An atom such as carbon only has so much energy available for bonding. A single bond requires less energy than a double bond. It is also true that a double bond physically brings the two atoms closer together.

Thus if you look at methane, CH4, each of the single bonds between the carbon and hytrogens will use less energy than the double c=c bond in say, C2H4. Double bonds can also affect the geometry of a molecule.

For instance, if you take a fat molecule, whether the fat molecule has single or double c-c bonds will determine whether the molecule is relatively flat and wafer like or relative 3 dimensional and bulky.

The reason saturated fats are bad for you: They contain no double bonds between carbons, therefore they are flat molecules and they tend to compact tightly together, thus jamming your arteries.

Unsaturated fats are, because of double bonds, relatively 3 diminsional, and tend to NOT pack down so neatly in your arteries.

Thus is is the geometry, or 3 dimensionality, of the fat molecules which determines their healthiness: their tendency to clog arteries.