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Bonding Forces and Energies: Intermolecular or Interatomic Forces

This lecture discusses bonding forces and energies. It explains that primary bonds are stronger than secondary bonds. It then describes interatomic forces as electrical interactions between atom charges when atoms are within 10-10 meters of each other. The valence bond theory is introduced as one approach to explain chemical bonding, focusing on how atomic orbitals combine to form bonds. Hydrogen molecule bonding is used as a simple example, where the hydrogen atoms share electrons in overlapping 1s orbitals to minimize potential energy at an optimal bond length.

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Manish Singh
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32 views

Bonding Forces and Energies: Intermolecular or Interatomic Forces

This lecture discusses bonding forces and energies. It explains that primary bonds are stronger than secondary bonds. It then describes interatomic forces as electrical interactions between atom charges when atoms are within 10-10 meters of each other. The valence bond theory is introduced as one approach to explain chemical bonding, focusing on how atomic orbitals combine to form bonds. Hydrogen molecule bonding is used as a simple example, where the hydrogen atoms share electrons in overlapping 1s orbitals to minimize potential energy at an optimal bond length.

Uploaded by

Manish Singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lecture 5

Bonding Forces and Energies

In last lectures both primary and secondary bonding was explained. Primary
bonding are stronger than secondary bonding. Now in this lecture forces
between two atoms will be discuss with the help of valence Band theory.

Intermolecular or Interatomic forces

The forces between the atoms due to electrostatic interaction between the
charges of the atoms are called interatomic forces. These forces are electrical in
nature and these are active if the distance between the two atoms is of the order
of atomic size i.e. 10 –10 metre.

Consider two isolated atoms moving towards each other as shown in Fig.1

Figure 1

As they approach each other, the following interactions are observed.

1. Attractive force A between the nucleus of one atom and electron of the
other. This attractive force tends to decrease the potential energy of the atomic
system.

2. Repulsive force R between the nucleus of one atom and the nucleus of the
other atom and electron of one atom with the electron of the other atom. These
repulsive forces always tend to increase the energy of the atomic system.

There is a universal tendency of all systems to acquire a state of minimum


potential energy. This stage of minimum potential energy corresponds to
maximum stability.

1
If the net effect of the forces of attraction and repulsion leads to decrease in the
energy of the system, the two atoms come closer to each other and form a
covalent bond by sharing of electrons. On the other hand, if the repulsive forces
are more and there is increase in the energy of the system, the atoms will repel
each other and do not form a bond.

Valence Bond Theory

Valence bond (VB) theory is one of two basic theories, along with molecular
orbital (MO) theory, that were developed to use the methods of quantum
mechanics to explain chemical bonding. It focuses on how the atomic orbitals of
the dissociated atoms combine to give individual chemical bonds when a
molecule is formed. In contrast, molecular orbital theory, which will be
discussed elsewhere, predict wavefunctions that cover the entire molecule.

The simplest case to consider is the hydrogen molecule, H2

When we say that the two hydrogen nuclei share their electrons to form a
covalent bond, what we mean in VB theory terms is that the two spherical 1s
orbitals (the grey spheres in Figure overlap and contain two electrons.

Figure 2 : These two electrons are now attracted to the positive charge of both
of the hydrogen nuclei, with the result that they serve as a sort of ‘chemical
glue’ holding the two nuclei together.

How far apart are the two nuclei? If they are too far apart, their respective 1s
orbitals cannot overlap, and thus no covalent bond can form - they are still just
two separate hydrogen atoms. As they move closer and closer together, orbital
overlap begins to occur, and a bond begins to form. This lowers the potential
energy of the system, as new, attractive positive-negative electrostatic
interactions become possible between the nucleus of one atom and the electron
of the second . However, something else is happening at the same time: as the
atoms get closer, the repulsive positive-positive interaction between the two
nuclei also begins to increase.

2
Figure 3: A Plot of Potential Energy versus Internuclear Distance for the
Interaction between

Two Gaseous Hydrogen Atoms. At long distances, both attractive and repulsive
interactions are small. As the distance between the atoms decreases, the
attractive electron–proton interactions dominate, and the energy of the system
decreases. At the observed bond distance, the repulsive electron–electron and
proton–proton interactions just balance the attractive interactions, preventing a
further decrease in the internuclear distance. At very short internuclear
distances, the repulsive interactions dominate, making the system less stable
than the isolated atoms.

At first this repulsion is more than offset by the attraction between nuclei and
electrons, but at a certain point, as the nuclei get even closer, the repulsive
forces begin to overcome the attractive forces, and the potential energy of the
system rises quickly. When the two nuclei are ‘too close’, we have an unstable,
high-energy situation. There is a defined optimal distance between the nuclei in
which the potential energy is at a minimum, meaning that the combined
attractive and repulsive forces add up to the greatest overall attractive force.
This optimal internuclear distance is the bond length; the distance is 74 pm for
H2

Likewise, the difference in potential energy between the lowest energy state (at
the optimal internuclear distance) and the state where the two atoms are
completely separated is called the bond dissociation energy, or, more simply,
bond strength; the H2 bond strength is 435 kJ/mol. The amount of energy
required to break a bond is called bond dissociation energy or simply bond
energy. Or Bond energy is a measure of the strength of a chemical bond. The
larger the bond energy, the stronger the bond.

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