Question
Question: Does \(NaCl\) have both ionic and covalent bonds?...
Does NaCl have both ionic and covalent bonds?
Solution
Ionic bonds are the bonds which are formed between a metal and a nonmetal in which the metal donates its electrons and the non-metal accepts those electrons while a covalent bond is formed when there is not much electronegativity between the atoms and they share a pair of electrons.
Complete answer:
Ionic bonds are the bonds which are formed between a metal and a non-metal in which the metal donates its electrons and the non-metal accepts those electrons Ionic bond is made up of electrostatic interactions that exists between two oppositely charged ions (positively charged and negatively charged).
We know that, positively charged ions are called “cations” and negatively charged ions are known as “anions”.
Now if we discuss about covalent bonds, so these are the bonds which are formed when electron pair gets shared between two atoms because there is no much electronegativity difference between them. In this type of bond, the orbitals overlap and in this way the bond forms.
So, now we will consider sodium chloride which is NaCl :
In NaCl , there is a sodium metal ion (Na+) and a chloride ion (Cl−). Therefore, we know that sodium is an electropositive element because it is a metal and it can donate its electron easily to complete its noble gas configuration while Chlorine is an electronegative element and can accept electrons easily to complete its noble gas configuration.
Hence, there is an electrostatic interaction between sodium and chloride ions and remains as:
Na+Cl−
Therefore, there is only ionic bond in NaCl .
Note:
Another type of bond also exists which is known as coordinate bond in which the bond is formed when a single element donates its electron pairs in the vacant valence shell of the central atom. These types of bonds are observed in the coordination complexes in which the ligands donate electron pairs in the vacant d-orbitals of the central metal atom.