Bonding Practical

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Will Shearsby

Bonding Practical

In this assessed practical I was given 8 different unknown compounds and had to do a series of tests on them to determine what the most likely type of bonding present in them. There was at least one compound from each of the following groups:

  • Small covalent
  • Giant covalent
  • Covalent polymeric
  • Ionic
  • Ionic with water of crystallisation

As well as these I will be testing to try and determine what intermolecular forces are present in the compounds, especially in the case of the small covalent ones.

The bonding in compounds affects the properties of that specific compound. Here are the examples for the 5 different types of bonding above:

Small Covalent – have relatively high boiling points and do not conduct electricity. If a liquid it must be a small covalent compound.

Giant Covalent – very high boiling points and do not conduct electricity. Are also very large compounds.

Covalent Polymeric – low boiling point and do not conduct electricity. These are very stretchy compounds because they are made up of chains of atoms bonded together by Van der Waal’s forces. These are weak so become easily untangled, this is why they are stretchy.

Substances with Covalent bonds are usually non-conductive, and insoluble. They may also dissolve in organic solvents such as ethanol and cyclohexane. I will be using these two solvents along with propanone to test for intermolecular forces.

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Here is an example of two atoms bonding covalently:

Ionic – conduct electricity and when evaporated nothing is left.

Ionic with water of crystallisation – conduct electricity and when evaporated a solid is left.

Substances with Ionic bonds are usually crystalline solids, therefore usually soluble in water, conduct electricity and are very hard.

These are just some of the many properties that are affected by the bonding present inside a compound.

I am going to do a series of tests that will help ...

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