Why do organic solids have lower melting points than inorganic solids?

Question

I have to answer this question for a lab report and it's not answered in the lab.

Answer 1

Most organic compounds are covalently bonded, and exist in solid form as discrete molecules. In soldi form, they are bunched together, but not bonded molecule to molecule. Thus, less energy is required to separate them one from another.

Most inorganic compounds are ionically bonded, and do not so much exist as discrete molecules as crystalline structures where the ions are shared. Look in your text for a description of the crystalline structure of sodium chloride sometime -- it isn't one sodium ion attached directly to one chloride ion, but a sodium ion surrounded by a lattice of chloride ions, which are surrounded by a bigger lattice of sodium ions, which is . . .