Lewis Structures and Covalent Bonding

We begin our discussion of the relationship between structure and bonding in covalent compounds by describing the interaction between two identical neutral atoms—for example, the H₂ molecule, which contains a purely covalent bond. Each hydrogen atom in H₂ contains one electron and one proton, with the electron attracted to the proton by electrostatic forces. As the two hydrogen atoms are brought together, additional interactions must be considered (Figure 1.1):

• The electrons in the two atoms repel each other because they have the same charge (E > 0).
• Similarly, the protons in adjacent atoms repel each other (E > 0).
• The electron in one atom is attracted to the oppositely charged proton in the other atom and vice versa (E < 0).Recall from Chapter 2  that it is impossible to specify precisely the position of the electron in either hydrogen atom. Hence the quantum mechanical probability distributions must be used.

A plot of the potential energy of the system as a function of the internuclear distance (Figure 1.2 ) shows that the system becomes more stable (the energy of the system decreases) as two hydrogen atoms move toward each other from r = ∞, until the energy reaches a minimum at r = r₀ (the observed internuclear distance in H₂ is 74 pm). Thus at intermediate distances, proton–electron attractive interactions dominate, but as the distance becomes very short, electron–electron and proton–proton repulsive interactions cause the energy of the system to increase rapidly. Notice the similarity between Figure 1.2 and Figure 4.1.1 , which described a system containing two oppositely charged ions. The shapes of the energy versus distance curves in the two figures are similar because they both result from attractive and repulsive forces between charged entities.