Covalent Bonding – sharing electrons
- Non-metals prefer to share electrons through covalent bonds
- They only share atoms on their outer shells – and this makes them feel like they have full outer shells like a noble gas
- Each atom involved will make up enough covalent bonds to fill up its outer shells
- H2 or Cl2 – Hydrogen and chlorine only have one electron to fill on their outer shells so they often form single covalent bonds to achieve this
- Methane (CH4) – Carbon has four electrons to fill on its outer shell – so it forms four covalent bonds to make up its outer shell
- Hydrogen Chloride (HCl) – both atoms only need one electron to fill its outer shell so bond with each other
- Ammonia (NH3) – Nitrogen has five outer electrons so it needs to form three covalent bonds make up the extra three electrons needed
- Water (H2O) – Oxygen atoms have six outer electrons – they sometimes form ionic bonds by taking two electrons to complete their outer shell. They also however form covalent bonds and share their two electrons. In H2O they share with two hydrogen atoms
- O2 In oxygen gas, oxygen shares two electrons with two other oxygen atoms to from a full outer shell – a double covalent bond is created.