Unit 3: Bonding - Concept 2: Stability and Bonding

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​Because we really only care about the valence e- when using drawings to show how bonds will form, we will now learn a new and simplified diagram to show what elements will do when they form a bond.

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​First draw the Lewis dot diagram for sodium.

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​Then draw the diagram for chlorine.

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​Next, draw an arrow showing the transfer of sodium's 1 valence electron to chlorine.

Since both atoms now have full outer shells, they are both stable with a ratio of 1:1.

​In this example, since aluminum had 3 valence electrons and each chlorine atom could only take 1, 3 chlorine atoms were needed to make all atoms stable with full outer shells.

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