Metals chemistry

StudentQns SG

1) in metallic bonding is the metallic bonding between the electrons and the metal ions? is that why they have strong boiling and melting point?

2a) pure metals, are they ions or atoms? cos in metallic bonds they release their valence electrons and these electrons do not belong to any one atom. hence they form a sea of delocalised electrons that flow freely between the atoms within the metal.

so the metal atoms release the electrons, to form ions so for example we take sodium is pure sodium considered an atom or ions (Huge amount of them). a contributing factor is that when i write equations i dont write Na+ i simply write Na. so i think it is an atom.

2b) so this is my understanding which i need you to correct: i think that it has a lot of ions in the pure metal. however, it does not have an overal charge as the valence electrons which are released by the atoms are not given out thus there is a neutral charge of 0, hence when we write equations we just write Fe and not Fe2+/Fe3+.

so what is pure metal considered to be?

thanks for all the help

Darkness_hacker99 SG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnTCYZPJsE

1) The reason why metals have high m.p. and b.p. is because the high amount of energy needed to break the 'sea of electrons' . Watch the video for more explanation it is much clearer that way.

2) Pure metals and any other metals, the atoms lose their electrons and comes together to form a sea of electron. Those round structures that you will see in the video are metal positive ions.

At O level Chemistry, you write Na + something --> X + Y, when you go into A level or slightly challenging O level questions, you will realise that there are spectator ions which do not take part in the actual chemical reactions.

For example in this case, Sodium is the reactant, the chemical formula is Na. The actual species that is taking part in the reaction is actually the sodium ion. So in a chemical equation, it is the reactants and products that we are more interested in (not the ions). When you dwell deeper into which ions take part in the reaction, you will need to write an ionic equation.

I believe you have learn about ionic equation in your school already, and you canceled ions that appeared on both sides of the equations, these are spectator ions that do not take part in the chemical reaction.

reactant =/= ions that take part in reaction

Chemical equation = Reactant + reactant + ... --> product + Product +...

=/= , does not equal to

StudentQns SG

oh ok i understand 1) but for 2) i mean that it is a reaction between a pure metal and another substance. and when we write that pure metal in the chemical equation we write it as just its chemical formula eg Na.

to simplify my question, im not sure if pure metals are considered a giant lattice of ions or atoms as the metal atoms loses its valence electrons but its overal charge is still 0, so im not sure how to classify them. thanks so much

doraemon1234 SG

2) metals are considered to be metal cations surrounded by a sea of delocalised electrons. however don't think of it like ionic bonding, metallic bonding and ionic bonding are very different.

also, I think you are very inquisitive and like to think about the fundamentals. you could probably get an A level textbook(or freshmen text) and read up, their explanation may be less confusing for you.

oh ya in chemistry they sometimes simplify the reaction by considering it as the metals atoms reacting, so that may be why u are confused. for example

Na(s) + HCl(aq) -->NaCl(aq) + 1/2 H2(g)

I've never seen them write it as Na+ reacting with H+

Hghjdfgdfgh SG

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