Ionic Bonding Introduction

this video is an introduction to ionic bonds and ionic bonding don't know anything about these things or you feel a little bit Rusty it's no big deal because we're going to start from scratch so ionic bonds are one type of chemical bond chemical bonds are like glue that holds atoms together okay like here are two atoms that are bonded together they're connected they're glued now ionic bonds are the type of chemical bond that hold together metal atoms with non-metal atoms okay so if you look at a periodic table there's this big thick staircase over on

this side and the staircase separates the metals which are all the elements on this side from the non-metals which are most the elements on this side so whenever we have a chemical that has a metal connected to a non-metal that's held together by ionic bonds so some examples are silver chloride magnesium iodide or aluminum oxide each one of these chemicals have a metal this one this one or this one from this side of the periodic table with a non-metal this one this one or this one from this side so ionic bonds and all these because

there are metals and non-metals connected together okay so now we're going to talk a little bit more about the how and why that's going on with the bonding here right it's like how do these atoms actually connect together what's holding them that's what we're going to talk about next okay so to learn more about ionic bonds we are going to focus on a chemical called sodium chloride sodium chloride is a fancy scientific name for table salt it's the stuff that you put on your food so sodium chloride is made of two types of atoms we

got sodium here's its symbol from the periodic table and here is a sodium atom right here and sodium chloride is also made of chlorine or chloride I'll tell you what the difference between those is in a minute but you don't have to worry about it right now and here is uh here's a chlorine atom now sodium chloride happens when these two atoms come together when they're glued together by ionic bonds but the atoms that I have right here they're not glued together they're just kicking it over here they have nothing to do with each other

so I want to talk about what happens to get these separate atoms connected and glued together like these how we go from this to this I'm going to tell you the kicker I'm going to tell you the end of the story now so you can follow it through as we talk the reason why these two atoms are connected is because they end up getting electrical charges okay this atom is going to end up getting a negative charge and this atom is going to end up getting getting a positive charge what do oppositely charged things like

to do they like to attract and so because these things get different electrical charges they are going to be held together by those different charges attracting okay so let's look at the steps that we have to take to go from this to this the first step is pretty much what I got right here we're starting with two separate atoms that aren't connected we got the metal atom the sodium here and the non-metal atom the chlorine over here now the first thing that happens on the road to an ionic bond is that the sodium atom gives

one of its electrons to the chlorine atom here's the electron moving between the two of them from the sodium to the chlorine now this electron this electron moving will change the charges of these two atoms okay that's what happens in The Next Step sodium gives away one of its electrons to the chlorine so it loses one electron it has one fewer electron and that's going to give it a positive charge because it lost an electron but chlorine gained one of the electrons from sodium so it's going to become negative it's going to get a negative

charge because of that extra electron so now these two atoms take on electrical charges and what do we call atoms that have charges we call them ions this one's a positive ion sodium becomes positive chlorine becomes negative now here is where the difference between chlorine and chloride comes chlorine is what we call the chlorine atom when it's neutral so up here this non-metal atom chlorine just hanging out here is chlorine zero charge but down here after it's received one of the electrons from sodium it gets a negative charge it becomes a negative ion and now

we change its name just a little bit we call it chloride so it's the same atom chlorine and chloride they're the same atom it's just chlorine is the version of chlorine with a neutral charge zero charge and chloride is a version of chlorine that just has a one minus charge and it got that one minus charge because sodium gave one of its electrons to chlorine turning it into the negative chloride now people often ask why does sodium give its electron to chlorine we'll talk about that in the next video it's a great question but anyway

a transfer of electrons takes place between these atoms giving this one a positive charge and this one a negative charge and what the opposite charges like to do they like to stick together and so this is what we end up with the two atoms glued together because their opposite charges are holding them together okay so there are really three important steps in an ionic bond forming for the example of sodium chloride here's what they are the first step is an electron transfers from sodium to chlorine sodium gives one of its electrons to chlorine sodium loses

an electron so that gives it a positive charge this becomes positive and chlorine because it has gotten an extra electron gets a negative charge and they both turn into ions atoms with a charge and since chlorine became negative we we we call it chloride and then the last step after the ions form is that the oppositely charged atoms the oppositely charged atoms stick together because of their opposite charges so it's those opposite charges that form that are the glue holding the atoms together okay so this is just the very basics of how ionic bonds form

we haven't really talked about details why the electrons move and that kind of thing that's what we're going to do in the next video so to go a little bit more in depth check that out but before you do just make sure that you understand these steps these basic steps of how ionic bonds form and then once you're good with this we'll go from there