Question

What is bond cleavage?

Answer 1

The term ‘bond cleavage’ is very much easy to understand. As its name suggests it is the cleavage of the bond, resulting in the splitting of the molecule in two fragments, those fragments can either be d=identical or different.

Complete answer:
So, basically, bond cleavage or bond fission is the splitting of the bond or cleavage of the covalent bond specifically.
So, now let’s look into the detail a little further, so it is the splitting of the molecule into its two separate fragments.
Now, the bond cleavage can be further divided into two types i.e. homolytic cleavage and heterolytic cleavage.
So let’s look into the matter that what is homolytic cleavage:
So, basically in the Homolytic cleavage, the covalent bond consisting of two electrons is broken down and each atom gets one electron. The homolytic cleavage ensures the equal sharing of the electrons.
Whereas, on the other hand, the Heterolytic cleavage includes the unequal sharing of the electrons. In this type of cleavage, both the electrons move to the one atom making it the anion, whereas the other atom lacks an electron and is termed as the cation.

Note:
We can have a look at the example of the Heterolytic bond cleavage – it is the ${S_{N1}}$ reaction between the $C - Br$ bond, I,e between the carbon atom and the bromine atom. When this bond cleavage takes place, both the shared electrons are taken up by the bromine atom making it an anion and the carbon remains as a cation.