what type of bonding will you expect in NaH?
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Why is NaH(aka sodium hydrid) an ionic bond?
During searching about lewis structure I've found, that no generator on the Internet could give a structure for NaH, and so I've read the Wikipedia article and have now the information, that NaH is ionic.
I didn't get it, because the electron negativity distance between hydrogen and sodium is about 1,2, also lower than 1,7. So how could it be an ionic bond?
Tl;dr:
Why is sodium hydride an ionic bond and not polar covalent?
How does its lewis structure look like?
Any cases when you can't use lewis dot structure?
You are right that the electronegativity difference isn't very high. But if you look at the actual numbers (2.2 for H and 1 for Na), you notice that the electronegativity of hydrogen is more than twice as big. That's a huge difference and the reason why it's ionic.
Lewis structure with dots would be something like this: Na+ H- with 2 dots at the H.
Edit: One case where the lewis drawings kinda fail for me are 3-center-2-electron bonds like they happen in diborane. Here the representation of lines and dots doesn't really make clear how many electrons are involved.
So there will be an ionic bond, although the distance between these two atoms are not over 1,7, becuase it's still a huge number for hydrogen and sodium?
Lewis structure is like: H-Na•, but does it make any sense for
Drawining a Bond like that for NaH is hardly correct. A drawn bond tells you that the electronpair is kina "shared" between the two bonding partners. For ions this is not the case. The electrons are located at one atom (the H) while the other (Na) has no electrons at all. The interaction between the two is only because positive and negative charged particles attract each other.
Emphasize that looking at the electroneg difference is a guide, not a firm rule.
Agreed. BF3 is covalent, despite the EN difference between B and F.
lIamachemistOrganic/Inorganic • 1y
The type of bond is a spectrum from purely ionic (like NaCl) to purely covalent (like C-C bonds), so you get some borderline cases. For example, the reason why the "covalent" C-F bond is so strong is because it has some partial ionic character, fluoride being so electronegative.
SLO_Chemist • 1y
Cation, Na minus an electron, Na+
Anion, H plus an electron H-
No covalent bonds.
During searching about lewis structure I've found, that no generator on the Internet could give a structure for NaH, and so I've read the Wikipedia article and have now the information, that NaH is ionic.
I didn't get it, because the electron negativity distance between hydrogen and sodium is about 1,2, also lower than 1,7. So how could it be an ionic bond?
Tl;dr:
Why is sodium hydride an ionic bond and not polar covalent?
How does its lewis structure look like?
Any cases when you can't use lewis dot structure?
You are right that the electronegativity difference isn't very high. But if you look at the actual numbers (2.2 for H and 1 for Na), you notice that the electronegativity of hydrogen is more than twice as big. That's a huge difference and the reason why it's ionic.
Lewis structure with dots would be something like this: Na+ H- with 2 dots at the H.
Edit: One case where the lewis drawings kinda fail for me are 3-center-2-electron bonds like they happen in diborane. Here the representation of lines and dots doesn't really make clear how many electrons are involved.
So there will be an ionic bond, although the distance between these two atoms are not over 1,7, becuase it's still a huge number for hydrogen and sodium?
Lewis structure is like: H-Na•, but does it make any sense for
Drawining a Bond like that for NaH is hardly correct. A drawn bond tells you that the electronpair is kina "shared" between the two bonding partners. For ions this is not the case. The electrons are located at one atom (the H) while the other (Na) has no electrons at all. The interaction between the two is only because positive and negative charged particles attract each other.
Emphasize that looking at the electroneg difference is a guide, not a firm rule.
Agreed. BF3 is covalent, despite the EN difference between B and F.
lIamachemistOrganic/Inorganic • 1y
The type of bond is a spectrum from purely ionic (like NaCl) to purely covalent (like C-C bonds), so you get some borderline cases. For example, the reason why the "covalent" C-F bond is so strong is because it has some partial ionic character, fluoride being so electronegative.
SLO_Chemist • 1y
Cation, Na minus an electron, Na+
Anion, H plus an electron H-
No covalent bonds.
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