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- Julia Mazzucato 4D
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Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Julia Mazzucato 4D » Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:20 pm
I've found conflicting answers on the internet so I wanted to ask here. I was always taught throughout high school that covalent bonds are stronger than ionic bonds. But I came across a question in the textbook asking which of two substances would have a higher boiling point and I know that it has to be the one with the stronger bond. One of them is covalent HCl and the other is ionic NaCl. I googled which was stronger and I found some people saying ionic is stronger and some people saying covalent is stronger. And now i'm just confused.
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- Jessica Castellanos
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Jessica Castellanos » Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:34 pm
I always heard that ionic bonds are stronger, ion-ion bonds are stronger than ion-dipole, dipole-dipole, H bonds, London dispersion forces, and dipole-induced dipole as well.
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby jisulee1C » Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:57 pm
It depends on the situation. In biology you hear that covalent bonds are stronger because you are usually comparing covalent bonds with ionic bonds in water. When ionic bonds are in water they are much weaker. However, in chemistry you usually say that ionic bonds are stronger because they are harder and take more energy to break than covalent bonds when they are not dissolved in a solution.
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- Cynthia Gong 1L
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Cynthia Gong 1L » Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:14 pm
ionic bonds are stronger because the molecules will form a tightly knit crystal lattice structure that is extremely strong.
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Mai V 4L » Fri Dec 06, 2019 5:17 pm
Cynthia Gong 1L wrote:ionic bonds are stronger because the molecules will form a tightly knit crystal lattice structure that is extremely strong.
so then should we always assume that salts are stronger than covalent bonds? does that change when they are in aq solution?
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- Nan_Guan_1L
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Nan_Guan_1L » Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:12 am
throughout ap chem I was taught ionic bonds are stronger than covalent bond in most cases. In response to the previous comment about nacl in aq form, when dissolved, the ionic bonds in nacl were broken, so I don't think it's comparable in that way.
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- Kaiya_PT_1H
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Kaiya_PT_1H » Thu Oct 08, 2020 12:07 pm
Last year in LS 7A, Dr. Maloy said that generally in life science, covalent bonds are considered to be stronger because chemical reactions occur almost entirely in aqueous solutions (the molecules with ionic bonds would be separated into ions). However I think in terms of just heating up a substance (per the original post), a molecule with an ionic bond would be stronger and therefore have a higher boiling point.
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- ShinwooKim_3E
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby ShinwooKim_3E » Wed Oct 14, 2020 5:06 pm
I think generally covalent bonds are stronger. Take salt and water for example, NaCl, an ionic compound, dissolves in H2O, a covalent compound. You can infer that the ionic bonds in NaCl were weak enough to break in an aqueous solution.
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- Morgan Gee 3B
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Morgan Gee 3B » Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:37 pm
In regards to chemistry, ionic bonds tend to be stronger than covalent bonds. In biology, covalent bonds tend to be stronger than ionic bonds because biologists consider ionic bonds in solution. If ionic bonds are in solution, they are weaker than ionic bonds not in solution.
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- Joey_Okumura_1E
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Joey_Okumura_1E » Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:46 pm
In a chemistry setting, ionic bonds are stronger due to Coulombic attraction. However, in a biology setting, covalent bonds are stronger. (Biologists think about the relative strength of bonds when present in a solution. Ionic bonds are easily broken in a solution because they form hydrogen bonds with the water molecules.)
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- Adrienne Yuh 2B
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Adrienne Yuh 2B » Sat Oct 17, 2020 4:10 am
In terms of chemistry, ionic bonds are stronger than covalent bonds!
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- Eric Tam 2D
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Eric Tam 2D » Sun Oct 18, 2020 11:24 pm
From reading the posts, the consensus seems to be that ionic bonds are usually stronger than covalent bonds. Are there examples of special cases where covalent bonds are stronger than ionic bonds? Also, why are some compounds represented as an aqueous solution in some chemical equations, and why does it matter?
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- Bai Rong Lin 2K
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Bai Rong Lin 2K » Sun Oct 18, 2020 11:26 pm
Julia Mazzucato 4D wrote:I've found conflicting answers on the internet so I wanted to ask here. I was always taught throughout high school that covalent bonds are stronger than ionic bonds. But I came across a question in the textbook asking which of two substances would have a higher boiling point and I know that it has to be the one with the stronger bond. One of them is covalent HCl and the other is ionic NaCl. I googled which was stronger and I found some people saying ionic is stronger and some people saying covalent is stronger. And now i'm just confused.
I was always taught that the Ionic bond is stronger compared to covalent, but recently I learned something about how the difference in the environment of the bond plays a factor as well.
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- Shana Patel 1C
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Shana Patel 1C » Sat Oct 24, 2020 11:33 pm
It depends on the situation. Covalent bonds are formed from the sharing of electrons between nuclei and, ionic bonds are formed from mutual attractions between oppositely charged ions. Ionic bonds tend to be stronger than covalent bonds. In high school, I was taught that ionic bonds are the strongest, followed by covalent, and finally London forces.
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- Muskaan Abdul-Sattar
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Muskaan Abdul-Sattar » Mon Oct 26, 2020 11:12 pm
Ionic is stronger according to my understanding!
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- isha dis3d
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby isha dis3d » Wed Oct 28, 2020 4:26 pm
Ionic bonds are stronger than covalent bonds because the electronegativity difference between the two elements is much greater than that of two elements in a covalent bond. In a covalent bond electrons are shared between the two elements and will often favor one element over the other depending on polarity.
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- David Chibukhchian 2G
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby David Chibukhchian 2G » Thu Oct 29, 2020 2:17 pm
I was also confused about this. I think ionic bonds are stronger, especially as the electronegativity difference between two bonded atoms increases and as the ionic character of the bond increases. Since increased ionic character means the bond is less covalent, it would mean that ionic is stronger. This is my understanding, I hope that helps!
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- Lauren Strickland 1B
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Lauren Strickland 1B » Fri Oct 30, 2020 12:04 am
I believe ionic bonds are usually stronger than covalent bonds.
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- Sophia Kalanski 1A
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Sophia Kalanski 1A » Sat Oct 31, 2020 3:32 pm
ionic bonds are usually stronger because they are causing a transfer in electrons rather than a quick sharing of them. Covalent bonds are created by electronegativity and tend to be weaker
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- Shruti Kulkarni 2I
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Shruti Kulkarni 2I » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:40 pm
I have always been told ionic bonds are the strongest, then covalent bonds, then London forces. I would assume that ionic would be the strongest because the atoms actually give up or gain electrons, they don't share them as is the case with covalent bonds.
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- SophiaNguyen_2L
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby SophiaNguyen_2L » Sat Oct 31, 2020 5:15 pm
I think ionic bonds are stronger because there's a stronger attraction between the oppositely charged atoms. And I think since covalent bonds are just atoms sharing electron pairs, it'd take less energy to break apart covalent bonds.
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- Anirudh Mahadev 1G
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Anirudh Mahadev 1G » Sat Oct 31, 2020 5:34 pm
I've heard ionic bonds are stronger, but certain types of covalent bonds may be stronger than an ionic bond. For example, the triple bond between two nitrogen atoms is extremely strong and takes about 900 kJ/mol to break.
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- Chinyere Okeke 2J
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Chinyere Okeke 2J » Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:59 am
I think it depends on the surroundings of the molecules. I know in aqueous solutions covalent bonds are usually stronger than ionic and in biology most of the molecules looked at are in aqueous solution. However, in chemistry I was also taught ionic bonds are generally stronger because the coulombic opposite charges of the ions have an attraction.
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- Sukhkiran Kaur 3I
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Sukhkiran Kaur 3I » Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:09 pm
In terms of chem, I believe it would be ionic bonds.
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- Sameer Chowdhury 3C
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Sameer Chowdhury 3C » Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:43 pm
I believe in order of strength at the molecular level it goes, from strongest to weakest: ionic, covalent, polar, Van der Waals forces.
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- David Liu 1E
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby David Liu 1E » Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:10 pm
I'm pretty sure ionic bonds are stronger for this class, but as comments above have said, it seems that covalent bonds are stronger for chemistry
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- Ethan Goode 2H
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Ethan Goode 2H » Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:20 pm
Ionic bonds are typically stronger than covalent bonds; however, ionic bonds in water are weaker that covalent bonds due to the water molecules messing with the bonds.
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- Gustavo_Chavez_1K
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Gustavo_Chavez_1K » Sun Nov 01, 2020 10:57 pm
I honestly have found conflicting answers on this question too. From what I remember learning, I think that covalent bonds are generally the strongest. But ionic bonds may be stronger depending on the maximization of the attraction between ions of opposite charges.
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- Morgan Gee 3B
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Re: Is ionic or covalent stronger?
Postby Morgan Gee 3B » Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:22 pm
Ionic bonds tend to be stronger than covalent bonds as solids but weaker than covalent bonds when in solution. In chemistry, ionics bonds are usually considered stronger as we work with ionic bonds in the solid state more often while in biology, ionic bonds are considered weaker as molecules tend to be in solution.
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