Wednesday 24 April 2013

1.43 explain the high melting and boiling points of substances with giant covalent structures in terms of the breaking of many strong covalent bonds

A giant covalent structure is one with many atoms bonded together. To melt or boil them you are not separating intermolecular bonds (between molecules), you are separating intramolecular bonds that keep the molecule together. These bonds are strong covalent bonds which take a lot of energy to break, so a lot of heat energy is required before the bonds will break to boil or melt; meaning they have high melting and boiling points.

9 comments:

  1. is it supposed to say intramolecular bonds?

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  2. In covalent, are there strong intramolecular and weak intermolecular in both but Giant covalent has a high bp because there are so many bonds?

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    Replies
    1. yes, due to the many bonds between atoms it's very strong

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    2. there arent any intermolecular bonds; all the bonds are intramolecular

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