Chemically

Bound Chapter 3

Ionic/Metallic Bonds

It was at last the time for Sodium to come into play. Fran called the metallic element forth, then asked for Chlorine. The two elements, Byakuran and Gokudera, walked over, and Fran ordered them to hold hands. Once they were donig so, Fran bound their hands together with his shoelace in order to prove a point.

"NaCl, Sodium chloride, or, as I like to call you two, table salt."

"Salt?" Bel repeated. "Yay! Now, come stand on my lunch!"

"Bel, we're not doing that," Fran sighed. "This bond is between a metal and a nonmetal. Sodium has one valence electron, and Chlorine has seven. As such, they fit together perfectly. In fact, Sodium completely gives its one valence electron to Chlorine, allowing Chlorine to have a full, stable outer shell, and Sodium is made stable because beneath that one outermost electron was a full shell. Since elements have the same number of positive-protons as they do neutral-neutrons, giving away that negatively-charged electron makes Sodium charged positive, while Chlorine, in obtaining a new electron is charged negatively. And as the cliche goes, opposites attract."

"This is what an ionic bond is," Bel said with a wide grin. "They get along so well that it's really, really tough to separate them. Usually, an ionic substance will be a crystalline compound with a really high melting point. They're brittle, but can still conduct electricity- only when dissolved in water."

"Bel, don't forget," Fran interrupted. "The brittle nature is what makes them stronger bonds. You can't bend them, or hope to stretch them in any way. Covalent bonds, those are the nonmetal to nonmetal bonds, are the type that you can contort. And remember this, Bel, you can lead some salt to water, but you better have enough if you want all of it to dissolve!"

The Bel sighed. "All right, then."

Fran thought to himself for a while, then said, "Any metal with two valence electrons will form an ionic bond with a nonmetal with six valence electrons, for example, Iron and Oxygen. This one's a bummer. When Iron and Oxygen bond, they make that weird looking thing known as Iron oxide, also known as rust."

"I hate rust," Bel muttered.

"Oxygen really is a heartless element," Fran added. "Since it only needs to more electrons, it's willing to push anyone around to get them."

"Anyone but Neon and the other inert gases: Helium, Argon, Xanon and Krypton."

"That's beside the point- the point is, Oxygen really is a jerk."

"Uh huh."

"With three valence electrons, there are a lot of transition metals that fall head over heels for elements like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and other elements with five valence electrons."

"We're missing something," Bel noted.

"Indeed," Fran sighed. "We also want to cover metallic bonds. Alloys are compounds between two metals, and they are usually the product of metallic chemical bonds. Metals are really generous when it comes to electrons. Since they all have a low number of valence electrons, they'll all give away their electrons to the point where the original atoms are swimming in a sea of said valence electrons. The bonds aren't very strong, but they are present as solids. Now, this isn't always metallic, but upon bonding with other elements, Iron will often create stainless steel. And, being a stable compound, stainless steel is strong enough to avoid Oxygen's dangerous clutches."

"Hooray for steel!" Bel cheered.

"Unfortunately, that's all the time we have," Fran sighed. "Thanks everyone! I'm sure Phoenix is gonna be proud!"

-End

Ahhhh, man! So I finished this thing at 6:00 AM on Friday... after realizing it wasn't done. X'D

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