Two metals form what type of bond

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What is the ideal gas law constant? How do you calculate the ideal gas law constant? Even a soft metal like sodium melting point Sodium has the electronic structure 1s 2 2s 2 2p 6 3s 1. When sodium atoms come together, the electron in the 3s atomic orbital of one sodium atom shares space with the corresponding electron on a neighboring atom to form a molecular orbital - in much the same sort of way that a covalent bond is formed.

The difference, however, is that each sodium atom is being touched by eight other sodium atoms - and the sharing occurs between the central atom and the 3s orbitals on all of the eight other atoms. Each of these eight is in turn being touched by eight sodium atoms, which in turn are touched by eight atoms - and so on and so on, until you have taken in all the atoms in that lump of sodium.

All of the 3s orbitals on all of the atoms overlap to give a vast number of molecular orbitals that extend over the whole piece of metal. There have to be huge numbers of molecular orbitals, of course, because any orbital can only hold two electrons. The electrons can move freely within these molecular orbitals, and so each electron becomes detached from its parent atom. The electrons are said to be delocalized. This is sometimes described as "an array of positive ions in a sea of electrons".

If you are going to use this view, beware! Is a metal made up of atoms or ions? It is made of atoms. Each positive center in the diagram represents all the rest of the atom apart from the outer electron, but that electron has not been lost - it may no longer have an attachment to a particular atom, but it's still there in the structure.

If you work through the same argument above for sodium with magnesium, you end up with stronger bonds and hence a higher melting point. Magnesium has the outer electronic structure 3s 2. Both of these electrons become delocalized, so the "sea" has twice the electron density as it does in sodium. Skip to main content. Nonmetallic Elements. Search for:. Types of Bonds. Learning Objective Describe the types of bonds formed between atoms.

Key Points Nonmetals can form different types of bonds depending on their partner atoms. A covalent bond involves a pair of electrons being shared between atoms. Atoms form covalent bonds in order to reach a more stable state. There are two types of atomic bonds - ionic bonds and covalent bonds. They differ in their structure and properties. Covalent bonds consist of pairs of electrons shared by two atoms, and bind the atoms in a fixed orientation.