What kind of bonding is water

Covalent bonds occur when two atoms—in this case oxygen and hydrogen—share electrons with each other. Because oxygen and hydrogen attract the shared electrons unequally, each end of the V-shaped H 2 O molecule adopts a slightly different charge.

The area around the oxygen is somewhat negative compared to the opposite, hydrogen-containing end of the molecule, which is slightly positive. Skip to main content. Search form Search. Join The Community Request new password. Main menu About this Site Table of Contents. Types of Covalent Bonds: Polar and Nonpolar.

In unit two, we compared atoms to puppies and electrons to bones in our analogy of how bonding works. Now one puppy has two electron bones and one puppy has none. Because the electron bones in our analogy have a negative charge, the puppy thief becomes negatively charged due to the additional bone. The puppy that lost its electron bone becomes positively charged.

Because the puppy who lost his bone has the opposite charge of the thief puppy, the puppies are held together by electrostatic forces, just like sodium and chloride ions! In our analogy, each puppy again starts out with an electron bone. Some covalently bonded molecules, like chlorine gas Cl2 , equally share their electrons like two equally strong puppies each holding both bones. Other covalently bonded molecules, like hydrogen fluoride gas HF , do not share electrons equally.

The fluorine atom acts as a slightly stronger puppy that pulls a bit harder on the shared electrons see Fig. Even though the electrons in hydrogen fluoride are shared, the fluorine side of a water molecule pulls harder on the negatively charged shared electrons and becomes negatively charged. The hydrogen atom has a slightly positively charge because it cannot hold as tightly to the negative electron bones. Covalent molecules with this type of uneven charge distribution are polar. Molecules with polar covalent bonds have a positive and negative side.

In this analogy, each puppy represents an atom and each bone represents an electron. The O atom is highly electronegative in comparison to the H atom, hence it attracts the electron pair towards itself, making O atom itself partial negatively charged and H atom partial positively charged.

So, water is a polar compound. The partially negative charged O atoms, forms bond attracts partially positively charged H atom from other molecule, forming hydrogen bond, and water forms intermolecular hydrogen bonding. What type of chemical bond are found between water molecules? Chemistry Intermolecular Bonding Intermolecular Bonds. Sarita Rana. Sep 15,