Bond triangles or Van Arkel–Ketelaar triangles (named after
Anton Eduard van Arkel and
J. A. A. Ketelaar) are triangles used for showing different compounds in varying degrees of
ionic,
metallic
Metallic may be a reference to:
*Metal
* Metalloid, metal-like substance
*Metallic bonding, type of chemical bonding
* Metallicity, in astronomy the proportion of elements other than helium and hydrogen in an object
*Metallic color, a color that ...
and
covalent bonding
A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms ...
.
History
In 1941 Van Arkel recognised three extreme materials and associated bonding types. Using 36 main group elements, such as metals, metalloids and non-metals, he placed ionic, metallic and covalent bonds on the corners of an equilateral triangle, as well as suggested intermediate species. The bond triangle shows that chemical bonds are not just particular bonds of a specific type. Rather, bond types are interconnected and different compounds have varying degrees of different bonding character (for example, covalent bonds with significant ionic character are called polar covalent bonds).
Six years later, in 1947, Ketelaar developed van Arkel's idea by adding more compounds and placing bonds on different sides of the triangle.
Many people developed the triangle idea. Some (e.g. Allen's quantitative triangle) used
electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no ...
configuration energy as an atom parameter, others (Jensen's quantitative triangle, Norman's quantitative triangle) used
electronegativity
Electronegativity, symbolized as , is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons (or electron density) when forming a chemical bond. An atom's electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the ...
of compounds. Nowadays, electronegativity triangles are mostly used to rate the chemical bond type.
Usage
Different compounds that obey the
octet rule
The octet rule is a chemical rule of thumb that reflects the theory that main-group elements tend to bond in such a way that each atom has eight electrons in its valence shell, giving it the same electronic configuration as a noble gas. The rul ...
(
sp-elements) and
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
can be placed on the triangle. Unfortunately, d-elements cannot be analysed using van Arkel-Ketelaar triangle, as their electronegativity is so high that it is taken as a constant. Using electronegativity - two compound average electronegativity on x-axis and electronegativity difference on y-axis, we can rate the dominant bond between the compounds
Example is here
On the right side (from ionic to covalent) should be compounds with varying difference in electronegativity. The compounds with equal electronegativity, such as Cl
2 (
chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element with the symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between them. Chlorine i ...
) are placed in the covalent corner, while the ionic corner has compounds with large electronegativity difference, such as
NaCl
Sodium chloride , commonly known as salt (although sea salt also contains other chemical salts), is an ionic compound with the chemical formula NaCl, representing a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. With molar masses of 22.99 and 35.45 g/ ...
(table salt). The bottom side (from metallic to covalent) contains compounds with varying degree of directionality in the bond.
At one extreme is metallic bonds with delocalized bonding and the other are covalent bonds in which the orbitals overlap in a particular direction. The left side (from ionic to metallic) is meant for delocalized bonds with varying electronegativity difference.
See also
*
Covalent bonding
A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms ...
*
Ionic bonding
Ionic bonding is a type of chemical bonding that involves the electrostatic attraction between oppositely charged ions, or between two atoms with sharply different electronegativities, and is the primary interaction occurring in ionic compounds ...
*
Metallic bonding
Metallic bonding is a type of chemical bonding that arises from the electrostatic attractive force between conduction electrons (in the form of an electron cloud of delocalized electrons) and positively charged metal ions. It may be des ...
*
Atomic orbitals
In atomic theory and quantum mechanics, an atomic orbital is a function describing the location and wave-like behavior of an electron in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in any sp ...
*
Hund's rules
*
Ternary plot
A ternary plot, ternary graph, triangle plot, simplex plot, Gibbs triangle or de Finetti diagram is a barycentric plot on three variables which sum to a constant. It graphically depicts the ratios of the three variables as positions in an equ ...
External links
Van Arkel–Ketelaar Triangles of Bonding
{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Arkel-Ketelaar triangle
Chemical bonding