Water Molecule: Covalent Bonding, Secondary Interaction, Polarity, and Physical Properties

WATER MOLECULE 1
Water Molecule
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WATER MOLECULE 2
Introduction
Water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen in a ratio of 2 to 1. It is the most abundant
naturally occurring liquid and occupies about 75% of the total earth surface. It is a polar
molecule characterized by hydrogen bond with unique chemical and physical properties that
makes it popular for the study of both physical and chemical properties of compounds (Bourne,
2018). Water is generally referred to as a universal solvent because of its ability to dissolve most
chemicals. Unlike non-polar solvent such as methyl benzene, water only dissolves polar
compounds because it is non polar. Water is also essential to human life. Because of its physical
and chemical properties, can be used to illustrate covalent bonding, relationship between
physical characteristics of a compound and its structure, secondary interaction and unique
characteristics of compounds.
Covalent bonding in water
. A covalent bond is bond that is formed when chemically unstable atoms share equal
number of electrons to gain a chemical stability (either octet or duplet depending on the atomic
number of electrons). Unlike dative bonds where one or more set of paired electrons are
contributed by a one specie, in covalent bonds the paired electrons are equally contributed by the
combining atoms (Held, Fuchs, & Studer, 2017). Water is made of Hydrogen and oxygen whose
atomic numbers are 1 and 8 respectively. To be stable, hydrogen has to acquire 1 one electron to
achieve the duplet state while oxygen requires 2 electrons to achieve the octet state. Oxygen thus
shares 2 electrons, 1 each with two hydrogen atom to achieve an electronic configuration of 2.8
while each hydrogen achieves a configuration of 2 as shown in the diagram. This concept forms
the basis of covalent bonding.
In the Lewis diagram of covalent bond formation in water above, the ‘dots' represent
electrons from hydrogen while the cross represents electrons from oxygen (Nizamuddin et al,
2019, p.1958)
Secondary interaction