Electrovalent Bond

electrovalent bond

[i¦lek·trō¦vā·lənt ′bänd]

(physical chemistry)

ionic bond

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Electrovalent Bond

 

a type of chemical bond, based on electrostatic interaction between ions of opposite charge. Relatively pure bonds of this type form in alkali metal halides, such as KF, since each atom of the alkali metal has a weakly bound electron (bonding energy, about 3–5 electron volts), whereas the halogen atoms have the greatest affinity for electrons. However, even in crystals (and particularly the molecules) of these compounds, complete transfer of the electron from the metal atom to the halogen atom does not take place in most cases. The previously widely held views concerning the formation of divalent, trivalent, or tetravalent ions, such as Ca²⁺, O^2-, B³⁺, and Si⁴⁺, have not been confirmed in most cases, since here the chemical bond is formed in a more complex way. The concept of the effective ionic charge is used in estimating the degree to which a bond is electrovalent.

V. A. KIREEV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.