What is chemical bond? What are different types of chemical bonds?

Last updated on August 29th, 2020 at 09:51 am

Chemical bond

Atoms of all elements except of the inert gasses have a tendency to combine either with each other or with the atoms of other elements to form cluster of atoms with definite composition. A cluster formed may be either a molecule or an ion. The attraction between the atoms forming the cluster is called a chemical bond.

So, a chemical bond is defined as an attractive force that holds two or more atoms together in a stable molecule or in an ion.

Types of Bonds

Chemical bonds that have been found are of four types. They are as follows.

  1. Electrovalent or ionic bond: This types of bonds are established by the transfer of one or more valence electrons from one atom to the other.
  2. Co-valent bond: This types of bonds are established by the sharing of one, two or three electron pairs between the combining atoms.
  3. Co-ordinate co-valent bond: A covalent in which both electrons of the shared electron pair comes from one of the two atoms is called a coordinate bond.
  4. Metallic bond: It is a typical bond and is formed in metals. In this bond a variable number of electrons are shared simultaneously by a variable number of atoms of the metal.

All these four bonds are called strong bond. There are some weaker bond also, namely hydrogen bond and Vander Walls interaction.