AS OCR Salters hydrogen ionioc or covalent

right when hydrogen forms a bond with another element. Can it form ionic bonds or does it do covalent bonds.

e.g. Hydrogen and chlorine
would that just share electrons or would hydrogen lose an electron and this would go to a chlorine atom and they would bond ionically.

Or can it just do both depends on the situation

Reply 1

EierVonSatan

21

99% of the time hydrogen forms covalent bonds, so H-Cl is a covalent gas and not an ionic solid :smile:

Where hydrogen does form ionic structures it gains an electron to form H^- such as in NaH.

Reply 2

CHEM1STRY

11

It's normally always covalent. Just remember that:

Metal + Non-metal ---> ionic
Non-metal + Non-metal ---> covalent.

Reply 3

shengoc

12

f45

right when hydrogen forms a bond with another element. Can it form ionic bonds or does it do covalent bonds.

e.g. Hydrogen and chlorine
would that just share electrons or would hydrogen lose an electron and this would go to a chlorine atom and they would bond ionically.
This wont happen because hydrogen electron is a 1s orbital, the closest one to the nucleus, the ionisation energy would be so large due to very strong electrostatic force of attraction - this is different to in solution ,where acid dissociates into hydrogen ions.

Or can it just do both depends on the situation

Yes generally it forms covalent bonding - share its one electron with another atom.

But if you are doing A Level, there might be mention of hydride, which is the species H-. It is the only time when hydrogen would be in oxidation state -1.
You can get lithium hydride for example, and that is ionic, and that is a bond between hydrogen and another element.

So, yes, hydrogen can form ionic and covalent bonds, depending on how well the conditions are though generally it bonds covalently.

AS OCR Salters hydrogen ionioc or covalent

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