Recent content by Tiiba

I learned some time ago that in table salt, the valence electron spends only about 2/3 of its life in chlorine, and goes home on the weekends. This still feels weird to me, because every representation of an ionic compound shows the ions as completely separate. So what does the covalent bonding...

I thought the electrolyte probably plays a role, but I wasn't sure what that role is. And also had a hard time picturing what is going on. So the electron isn't simply moved from one atom to another. The metal goes from M (s) to M+ (aq), so it would break the bonds it had in the crystal, but...

Here is the Wikipedia page on electrode potentials. Here's how I'm reading it, which makes no sense: If a singly ionized atom of strontium donates an electron to the hydrogen in the standard hydrogen electrode, this will emit 4.101 eV of heat (395.68 kJ/mol). If cesium is used, there will be...

I know that, but Ithought it would be at least 90% ionic, given that this is THE classic ionic compound. I mosly wanted to know if my math is right. So the electron really spends that much time in the sodium?

Well, because it's an ionic bond.

I found out that sodium chloride has a dipole moment of 9 debye, and a sodium-chlorine distance of .28 nm. When I divide one by the other, I get 2/3 of an electron. Did my math go wrong somewhere, or is this supposed to happen? I expected something close to a full elementary charge.

Why is it that this empty p-orbital in BF3 has to be filled by a base, and not a reducing agent like sodium?

I meant, that's what it would do if hybrid orbitals didn't exist. It just helped me picture what's going on when I wrote it that way.

So I had two problems, one being that I didn't know what a hybrid orbital is, and the other is that I forgot that the bonds in BF3 are covalent. So it actually goes up to 2p4, although it sees the electrons less frequently thanfluorine does. And then the 2p4 mix with 2s2 to form 2 sp2 orbitals...

What do you mean by empty p-orbital? Free boron is 1s2 2s2 2p1, while oxidized boron is also 1s2. So if an electron goes to boron, would it not be on 2s? Is 2s skipped? Why? Also, here's what Wikipedia says about CO: "This causes a C ← O polarization of the molecule, with a small negative...

When beryllium donates a pair of electrons to oxygen, that's oxidation, and the metal is Be(II). When carbon and oxygen share 6 electrons, 2 from carbon and 4 from oxygen, this is also oxidation. Of carbon. Even though it got more electrons, and even, I heard, has a negative charge. When...

Wait, does sodium chloride burn in air? Because I don't think it does. For that matter, Wiki says NaI is non-flammable.

As you can see from the chart I linked, iodine, and even chlorine, is beaten by oxygen. Halides are more electronegative than chalcogens of the same period, though. So, I guess that in the gas phase, the bonds are weaker because the atoms feel the attraction only from their molecule, while in...

I wanted to know why, in general, alkali metals prefer to bond with less electronegative elements like iodine over oxygen. Everybody here seems to think it's an illusion. Maybe it is.

Okay, here's a differently phrased question. https://labs.chem.ucsb.edu/zakarian/armen/11---bonddissociationenergy.pdf http://projectvitaminc.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/7/5/48756251/1514828.png The bond energy between oxygen and sodium is 257 kJ/mol. The bond energy with iodine is 301 kJ/mol. With...