3.091 – Introduction to Solid State Chemistry Lecture Notes No. 2 ...

LN–2It is important to recognize that octet stabilization by electron orbital sharing results inbond properties which differ fundamentally from those encountered in ionic(electrovalent) bonding: with the formation of the covalent bond between the hydrogenatoms (H 2 molecule formation) the bond forming capabilities of the two hydrogen atomsare saturated; the final product is a distinct molecule (H 2 ) rather than a giant-sized solidbody which is obtained as the final product with ionic bond formation. Covalent solidbodies, however, also do exist: they are formed if the elements involved have thecapability of forming more than one bond. For example, carbon will form four covalentbonds in tetrahedral configuration - the result is diamond, a covalently bonded, threedimensional network.Diatomic Molecules Involving Dissimilar AtomsConsider the compound hydrogen chloride (in the gaseous, liquid or solid state). Thiscompound is not ionic (because the energy state on complete ionization would behigher. Instead, bonding between hydrogen and chlorine atoms is accomplished by thesharing of electrons in a molecular orbital, thus forming a single covalent bond (fig. 6).p yasymmetriccharge distributionpolar covalency withasymmetric electron distributionsH- -pClpxHClsimplifiedpresentationδ + δ ­p zH ClFigure 617