I need five differences between covalent and ionic bonding.?

Question

The differences should be about bonding not covalent and ionic compounds. Please help. My daughter has a test in a few hours and I can't find all 5 in any book or the net.

Answer 1

In covalent, atoms share electrons, but in ionic, one atom gives them to the other. So in an ionic compound, there is a positive ion and a negative ion. They ions can separate when put in water, and then the electricity can pass through. Covalent compounds don't have a positive pole and a negative pole, and they don't ionize in water. Also, the ionic bond is kinda stronger, so usually the compound is solid at room temperature (salt is ionic, oil is covalent). You have to know that there is a third category, a polar molecule (like water).

Answer 2

1. Covalent chemical bonds involve the sharing of a pair of valence electrons by two atoms, in contrast to the transfer of electrons in ionic bonds.

2. Covalent bonds lead to stable compounds or molecules, whereas ionic bonds usually result in unstable compounds or molecules. (By unstable, I am referring to the electrons and if it's neutral or not.)

3. The atoms of covalent materials are bound tightly to each other in stable molecules, but those molecules are generally not very strongly attracted to other molecules in the material. On the other hand, the atoms (ions) in ionic materials show strong attractions to other ions in their vicinity.

4. In a covalent bond, each atom contributes one electron to make a pair, and the atoms share that pair of electrons.. In an ionic bond, each atom still contributes one electron to form a pair of electrons, but this pair of electrons is not shared by the two atoms.

5. Ionic and covalent bonds differ in the extent to which a pair of electrons is shared by the atoms that form the bond. When one of the atoms is much better at drawing electrons toward itself than the other, the bond is ionic. When the atoms are approximately equal in their ability to draw electrons toward themselves, the atoms share the pair of electrons more or less equally, and the bond is covalent. As a rule of thumb, metals often react with nonmetals to form ionic compounds or salts, and nonmetals combine with other nonmetals to form covalent compounds.

Hope this helps! =]
I hope your daughter does well on her test!

Answer 3

I can't answer any better than the first responder, but here is a website for reference.