Atomic Structure
To review, an atom consists of a small,
dense nucleus containing all of its protons and neutrons,
surrounded by electrons that fill the remaining volume of the atom.
The atom stays electrically neutral because the number of protons and electrons are usually equal.
In this section, the structure of atoms and the chemical properties will be studied,
and the number of electrons and the way they are distributed generally determine them.
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Chemical Bonding: Introduction
Atoms of almost every element has the ability to combine with other atoms to form more complex structures.
The forces of attraction that bind them together are chemical bonds.
To understand chemistry, the nature and origin of chemical bonds is important,
since the basis of chemical reactions is the forming and the breaking of bonds and the changes in bonding forces.
There are two main classes of bonding forces: covalent bonds and ionic bonds.
Covalent bonding deals with the sharing of electrons between atoms.
Ionic bonding deals with the transfer of electrons between atoms.
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Chemical Bonding: Geometry
While the structure of ionic compounds are characterized by an orderly arrangement of its ions
controlled primarity by the sizes of the ions and their charges and have no preferred directional properties,
meaning that the array of ions can collapse is it is melted,
the structure of molecular substances can be very different and complicated.
Molecules have three-dimensional shapes determined by the relative orientations of their covalent bonds,
which is maintained whether it is a solid, liquid, or gas.
Properties of the molecule depend on the arrangement of the atoms.
For example, enzymes, which make biochemical reactions happen faster,
can lose their function if there are slight alterations in its structure,
because they require precise fits between molecules.
This section will deal with the geometry of molecules and the study of theoretical models to predict their shapes.
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