Stronger bonds

[Amber_Candelaria_1D]

How would we be able to tell which molecules have stronger bonds? Or in other words, what makes a bond strong?

[Eunnie_Lee_3H]

There are covalent bonds and ionic bonds. Covalent bonds "share" their electrons between them, while in ionic bonds, one of the atoms "takes" the electrons of the other atom to complete its electron shell. The greater the difference is between the two atom's electronegativity values, (such as with Lithium and Fluorine), the more ionic the bond will be and therefore generally stronger.

Another way to figure out strength of a bond is to look to see if it's a single, double, or triple bond (when looking at Lewis structures). Triple bonds are the shortest and the strongest bonds (since the atoms are closer together, more difficult to separate from each other, would take more energy to break the bond), and single bonds are the longest and weakest bonds (is easier to separate atoms that are farther apart from each other).

Hope that answered your question!

[Chris_Rudewicz_3H]

The bond length and the type of bond tell you a lot about the strength of the bond.

Ionic > covalent in terms of strength in most cases.

triple bond > double bond > single bonds in most cases. Triple bonds are shortest, single are longest.

[Chem_Mod]

I would be cautious in saying ionic bonds are stronger than covalent as a rule. For example, diamond is a crystal made up of all covalent bonds and is one of the strongest existing naturally occurring materials.