How do you know if two or more compounds are going to form an ionic bond or a covalent bond?

Question

I understand the difference between each, I just do not understand how - by looking at the given compounds - you can tell what kind of bond they are going to form. How do you know if they will transfer or share electrons?

Answer 1

You'll know by experience, but you can PREDICT it pretty well by the difference in their electronegativities. Let's see if I can do this by memory.
In your textbook, somewhere there is a Periodic Table of Electronegativities. It's just a periodic table that lists the electronegativity for each element. Fluorine is greatest, it ranks at 4.0. The remaining elements are each less.
What you do next is subtract the two values for the two elements in question. This difference in the electronegativities will tell you what kind of bond to predict.
If the difference between the two numbers ranges from
0.0 to 0.3, then you can expect the bond to be nonpolar (nonpolar covalent, that is)

If the difference between the two numbers ranges from 0.3 to 1.7, (I think it's 1.7) Check your book) then you can expect the bond to be polar covalent.

If the difference is greater than 1.7, then you can expect the bond to be ionic.

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Answer 2

It depends on their relative electronegativities toward eachother. Atoms that have a large difference in electronegativity will be ionic and those with a small difference will be covalent. Ionic bonds don't share electrons as much and covalent ones do. Remember, electronegativity increases as you move up and to the left of the periodic table. Just remember that F is the most electronegative element.

Answer 3

it depends on their electronegativity, but a VERY good rule of thumb is that any element to the right of the little step ladder on the right side of the periodic table will make covalent bonds with each other and ionic bonds with those left of the ladder.

Answer 4

As fortitudinousskeptic said, it has to do with the difference in electronegativity for the two elements. If you have a chemistry text book, it should have a table of electronegativities for all (or most) of the elements.

Answer 5

i would look up a science book for the answers. different elements react differently