Bonding in Elements

Do elements make relations? Yes they do; just as we make relations. Their relations are called “Bond”. Every element has a particular nature and it likes to make relation with a specific kind of element. Like us some elements are very friendly and make a number of friends, some are a little bit choosy and make a few selective friends and some like to be alone, these are royal type of elements.

Which factor guides their behaviour? Similar to our life where money factor decides most of the decisions, electron plays a major role in an element’s behaviour. To understand this you have to know how these electrons are distributed in an atom. In other words, you have to study financial condition of an element.

In the previous post you have learnt that every track allows a particular number of electrons. These tracks are called as “Orbits” in which electrons move around the nucleus. Orbit 1 allows only 2electrons, Orbit 2 allows 8, Orbit 3 also allows 18 and Orbit 4 allows 32 electrons.

Elements are not greedy like us. They just want to have 8 electrons in their outer most Orbit. If they have less than that, they like to borrow and if they have extra they love to give it. In their community 8 is the holy figure that every element tries harder to achieve. And those who already have this Octet (In Greek it means 8) are called Nobel elements. They like to live alone and rarely make any relation.

Let’s have a look on an element Sodium ¹¹Na, its symbol is ‘Na’ which is short form of its Latin name Natrium. It has 11 electrons. When you distribute them in orbits, you find 2 electrons in 1^storbit, 8 electrons in 2^nd orbit, and remaining 1 electron in 3^rdorbit. If it loses 1 electron it will have 8 electrons in 2^nd orbit.

When you study electronic distribution of element chlorine ¹⁷Cl, you find 2 electrons in 1^st orbit, 8 electrons in 2^nd orbit and 7 electrons in 3^rd orbit. There is one less than eight electrons in outer most orbit. Cl is looking for someone who can give him one electron.

Cl wants 1electron and Na wants to lose 1 electron. So they come together and make a bond. Thus they both achieve octet and stay together as NaCl (sodium chloride). You can find it in your kitchen. Without it nothing can taste better. It’s your table salt.

You know atoms are neutral because there electrons and protons are present in equal number. When atom loses or borrows electrons in order to achieve octet state, it disturbs the balance of charge. It means either negatively charged electrons or positively charged protons become in excess and the majority decides the charge of the atom. Charged atom is called “ion”. Charge of an ion is written in the right superscript.

When sodium donates an electron, it becomes positively charged because now protons are in majority. It is now called sodium ion Na⁺. Similarly Chlorine becomes negatively charged as it borrowed an electron. It is called as chloride ion Cl^- .

Now these oppositely charged ions attract each other and make a bond. This bond is called “ionic bond”.​

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.