WATER
This is a water molecule. Even though you find complex names on other molecules, everyone calls H2O Water. Water is made up of two hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom. The formula for water is H2O. The Hydrogen atoms have filled orbitals with two electrons and the oxygen atom is filled with eight electrons.
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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ELEMENTS COMBINE?
When several elements come together it is called a compound. Compounds can be made up of two atoms or hundreds of atoms. There are even compounds that have the same number of atoms but have different shapes. These compounds with different shapes are called isomers.
No matter what atoms are in a compound, they all want to be "happy". A happy atom is one with the right number of electrons in the outer orbital. That desire to be happy is why some elements only combine with a few other elements. Not all elements can make each other "happy".
To learn more what makes an atom happy and how it picks other elements to combine with, just click... ![[Button: To Compound Details]](../../art_global/icon_details.gif)
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HYDROGEN PEROXIDE
Two hydrogen atoms can also bond with two oxygen atoms, making the formula H2O2. That's just one more oxygen than water but it is a totally different compound. You can see that each of the Oxygen atoms has eight electrons and the two Hydrogens have two electrons each. See how the electrons are shared?
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HOW DO SCIENTISTS NAME COMPOUNDS?
When you look at the names of some of these compounds... Don't get confused. The names may be long but they all make sense. Scientists came up with a naming system for compounds that is very specific.
You can see that there are usually at least two words. The first word describes the first part of the compound. The second word describes the last part of the compound.
Use H2S as an example. The name of the compound is Hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen is for the H2 part of the formula. Sulfur is the second part so scientists say SULFIDE. There is SULF and then they finish the word with IDE. Most compound names end with IDE.
For the real dirt on naming just click... ![[Button: To Naming Details]](../../art_global/icon_details2.gif)
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HYDROGEN SULFIDE
Two hydrogen atoms can also bond with one sulfur atom and make the compound H2S (also known as Hydrogen sulfide). The same way that oxygen is happy when it has two extra electrons, sulfur (S) likes to have two extras as well. See how the Sulfur atom gets to share each of the electrons from the Hydrogen atoms?
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DIFFERENT KINDS OF BONDS!
You should know that even though there are two electrons involved in a bond, those electrons can be shared in different ways. Two types of bonds we will talk about are covalent and ionic (electrovalent) bonds.
Ionic bonds happen when electrons are given up by one atom to another. Covalent bonds happen when electrons are shared by both atoms.
If you want to learn more about bonds try this...
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