5 ms·

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

po 12y ago
This is exactly why chemistry is so interesting and the ways in which things can combine is also why it is so difficult. Fundamentally, it's mostly about the electron charges on an atom which are balanced out by the number of protons in the nucleus. The proton however is a tightly packed point charge but the electrons can only exist in various energy levels (think of different shapes) around it. You could think of it as trying to pack a bunch of magnets that have very elaborate electromagnetic field shapes into a box in a specific configuration. You might find one configuration that happens to be 'stable' until a big piece of iron is nearby and then suddenly it all snaps into a new configuration.
danieltillett 12y ago
The science background expected is pretty high. Some things are hard to understand without the background, but in this case it is pretty easy. Explosive chemicals have bonds between the atoms that are under a lot of stress (think of it like a wound up elastic band). An explosion occurs when the stressed bond breaks (the elastic band is let go). A chemical like the one discussed has several bonds that are under massive stress (i.e the elastic band is huge and wound very tight). All it takes is the slightest bump or even a dirty look and the whole thing goes boom!
- nathannecro 12y ago
  That's actually very incorrect. Bond breakage is ALWAYS endothermic. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZOm8L9oCwLMC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=bond+breaking+endothermic&source=bl&ots=pt7qf4EpFv&sig=6YLOGt46eGg3xjg6k1LLYGVFCSY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bcw4VPebDMPBigK1r4CwCQ&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=bond%20breaking%20endothermic&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=ZOm8L9oCwLMC&pg=PA202&lpg=P... Edit: Sorry, I hate leaving one-sentence rebuttals. The energy required to break the bonds are so low that in comparison, the energy released when the products of the reaction are formed is very high. This giant disparity in energy released at the same time creates a sharp increase of heat and light (boom). Also, your company is pretty neat. Any way for me to directly contact you?
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    Of course what I am explaining is incorrect, but I am trying to give the GP an idea of what is going on. Using my elastic band analogy, releasing the band requires energy (it is endothermic), but it get across the idea that there is a great deal of potential energy stored that is released once the band is released (i.e. a small amount of energy put into breaking a very weak bond will, after all the chemical rearrangements, release a lot of energy). Sure if you want to get in contact with me just write to any of the contact emails on my companies website - it will get to me in the end :)
adamryman 12y ago
If you want a pretty good layman understanding of chemistry I recommend this video series. It is high paced and a little silly at times but it keeps your attention and you can rewind anything you do not understand or miss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPHzzYuWy6fYEaX9mQQ8oGr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjX...
IgorPartola 12y ago
I will attempt at conveying my simplistic understanding of it (physics major here): electrons are negative, protons are positive. Electrons want to be matched with protons. Two atoms can form a strong bond if they have just enough electrons to bond them but not enough to repel each other. Oxygen can bond to oxygen via a double covalent bond (http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/doublebonds.html http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/doublebonds.html) but it has too many electrons, so it is essentially on the brink of breaking up (much more so, than say H2O or CO2). Basically, if you have an unstable oxygen bond, many things introduced nearby can disturb it, starting a reaction. The rest is easy: a single atom of Oxygen is extremely reactive. If you take an O=O molecule (= means double covalent bond) and add some fuel, you get fire. At high concentrations, drop in just a bit of fuel and you can get a violent reaction.
- dnautics 12y ago
  Urg, O2 is actually a very bad example, because it's actually 'O-O' (where the ticks are radicals), this is called "triplet" oxygen. In the ground state it's a single bonded O2 with two free, unpaired electrons. There is "singlet" oxygen which is typically depicted as O=O, but it's actually O triple-bond O with two antibonding electrons that negate one of the 'triple' bonds which makes it effectively O=O but very different in reality.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    If the OP asks about Newton's laws, and the parent responds with a brief summary of F=ma and friends, what good does it do to launch into a discourse about how all that stuff is totally wrong in the context of Lorentzian spacetime? 99% of physics and chemistry education consists of learning that whatever they taught you last semester wasn't quite right.
nathannecro 12y ago
Let me try my hand at simply explaining this. Atoms are composed to two sections: A positively charged center -- the nucleus. A negatively charged outside -- the electron cloud. When several atoms get together, they do so because their electron clouds start intermingling. This sharing of their electrons is fundamentally what a bond is. A bond is strong when both of the atoms really want their electrons to intermingle. Conversely, a weak bond is when the atoms are "forced" to be next to each other and intermingle. Strong bond = opposite poles of a magnet next to each other. Weak bond = similar poles of a magnet next to each other. Somewhat counterintuitively, it's not the fact that the bond's want to separate from each other that makes something really explosive/reactive. To really understand what's going on, you have to take a look at the energetics (thermodynamics) of how a reaction proceeds. The tendency of the physical world is always towards disorder (entropy). Rather than becoming more ordered, every single atom in the universe wants to be more comfortable. Think back to our magnet analogy. Magnets with the same pole facing each other really don't want to be next to each other. In fact, they'd LOVE to find another magnet with the opposite pole facing them. The magnets which have a weak bond find it really, really easy to separate. In fact, almost anything will split the connection. However, those magnets, once separated, must find another (opposite) partner for them to pair up with. The amount of energy that they release when they find their perfect mate is evidenced by the fact that the magnets will literally hop across short distances and smack together in a satisfying *crack. What we also know in thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created, nor destroyed. Thus the net energy in any reaction must be equal on both sides. We know a couple of things: The energy required to split the weak bond is really, really little. The energy released when a strong bond is formed is a lot (in fact, you hear the release of energy in the form of heat and sound!). Atoms prefer strong bonds to weak ones (entropy). Putting everything together, when you have an molecule with extremely weak bonds (HOOOH), it takes almost no effort for those bonds to come apart. However, when those oxygens go find other molecules to bond with, that releases some energy. Thus NET ENERGY is heavily favored in the exothermic (release of energy) direction. When enough of those super weak bonds are broken, and when enough of the strong bonds are formed rapidly, you have a simultaneous release of a huge amount of heat --- an explosion. Sorry if that's a little long, but I tried to explain your questions. (Which was a fundamentally very interesting question!)
- 12y ago

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

po 12y ago

This is exactly why chemistry is so interesting and the ways in which things can combine is also why it is so difficult. Fundamentally, it's mostly about the electron charges on an atom which are balanced out by the number of protons in the nucleus. The proton however is a tightly packed point charge but the electrons can only exist in various energy levels (think of different shapes) around it. You could think of it as trying to pack a bunch of magnets that have very elaborate electromagnetic field shapes into a box in a specific configuration. You might find one configuration that happens to be 'stable' until a big piece of iron is nearby and then suddenly it all snaps into a new configuration.

danieltillett 12y ago

The science background expected is pretty high. Some things are hard to understand without the background, but in this case it is pretty easy. Explosive chemicals have bonds between the atoms that are under a lot of stress (think of it like a wound up elastic band). An explosion occurs when the stressed bond breaks (the elastic band is let go). A chemical like the one discussed has several bonds that are under massive stress (i.e the elastic band is huge and wound very tight). All it takes is the slightest bump or even a dirty look and the whole thing goes boom!

nathannecro 12y ago
That's actually very incorrect. Bond breakage is ALWAYS endothermic. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZOm8L9oCwLMC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=bond+breaking+endothermic&source=bl&ots=pt7qf4EpFv&sig=6YLOGt46eGg3xjg6k1LLYGVFCSY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bcw4VPebDMPBigK1r4CwCQ&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=bond%20breaking%20endothermic&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=ZOm8L9oCwLMC&pg=PA202&lpg=P... Edit: Sorry, I hate leaving one-sentence rebuttals. The energy required to break the bonds are so low that in comparison, the energy released when the products of the reaction are formed is very high. This giant disparity in energy released at the same time creates a sharp increase of heat and light (boom). Also, your company is pretty neat. Any way for me to directly contact you?
- danieltillett 12y ago
  Of course what I am explaining is incorrect, but I am trying to give the GP an idea of what is going on. Using my elastic band analogy, releasing the band requires energy (it is endothermic), but it get across the idea that there is a great deal of potential energy stored that is released once the band is released (i.e. a small amount of energy put into breaking a very weak bond will, after all the chemical rearrangements, release a lot of energy). Sure if you want to get in contact with me just write to any of the contact emails on my companies website - it will get to me in the end :)

adamryman 12y ago

If you want a pretty good layman understanding of chemistry I recommend this video series. It is high paced and a little silly at times but it keeps your attention and you can rewind anything you do not understand or miss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPHzzYuWy6fYEaX9mQQ8oGr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjX...

IgorPartola 12y ago

I will attempt at conveying my simplistic understanding of it (physics major here): electrons are negative, protons are positive. Electrons want to be matched with protons. Two atoms can form a strong bond if they have just enough electrons to bond them but not enough to repel each other. Oxygen can bond to oxygen via a double covalent bond (http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/doublebonds.html http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/doublebonds.html) but it has too many electrons, so it is essentially on the brink of breaking up (much more so, than say H2O or CO2). Basically, if you have an unstable oxygen bond, many things introduced nearby can disturb it, starting a reaction. The rest is easy: a single atom of Oxygen is extremely reactive. If you take an O=O molecule (= means double covalent bond) and add some fuel, you get fire. At high concentrations, drop in just a bit of fuel and you can get a violent reaction.

dnautics 12y ago
Urg, O2 is actually a very bad example, because it's actually 'O-O' (where the ticks are radicals), this is called "triplet" oxygen. In the ground state it's a single bonded O2 with two free, unpaired electrons. There is "singlet" oxygen which is typically depicted as O=O, but it's actually O triple-bond O with two antibonding electrons that negate one of the 'triple' bonds which makes it effectively O=O but very different in reality.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  If the OP asks about Newton's laws, and the parent responds with a brief summary of F=ma and friends, what good does it do to launch into a discourse about how all that stuff is totally wrong in the context of Lorentzian spacetime? 99% of physics and chemistry education consists of learning that whatever they taught you last semester wasn't quite right.

nathannecro 12y ago

Let me try my hand at simply explaining this. Atoms are composed to two sections: A positively charged center -- the nucleus. A negatively charged outside -- the electron cloud. When several atoms get together, they do so because their electron clouds start intermingling. This sharing of their electrons is fundamentally what a bond is. A bond is strong when both of the atoms really want their electrons to intermingle. Conversely, a weak bond is when the atoms are "forced" to be next to each other and intermingle. Strong bond = opposite poles of a magnet next to each other. Weak bond = similar poles of a magnet next to each other. Somewhat counterintuitively, it's not the fact that the bond's want to separate from each other that makes something really explosive/reactive. To really understand what's going on, you have to take a look at the energetics (thermodynamics) of how a reaction proceeds. The tendency of the physical world is always towards disorder (entropy). Rather than becoming more ordered, every single atom in the universe wants to be more comfortable. Think back to our magnet analogy. Magnets with the same pole facing each other really don't want to be next to each other. In fact, they'd LOVE to find another magnet with the opposite pole facing them. The magnets which have a weak bond find it really, really easy to separate. In fact, almost anything will split the connection. However, those magnets, once separated, must find another (opposite) partner for them to pair up with. The amount of energy that they release when they find their perfect mate is evidenced by the fact that the magnets will literally hop across short distances and smack together in a satisfying *crack. What we also know in thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created, nor destroyed. Thus the net energy in any reaction must be equal on both sides. We know a couple of things: The energy required to split the weak bond is really, really little. The energy released when a strong bond is formed is a lot (in fact, you hear the release of energy in the form of heat and sound!). Atoms prefer strong bonds to weak ones (entropy). Putting everything together, when you have an molecule with extremely weak bonds (HOOOH), it takes almost no effort for those bonds to come apart. However, when those oxygens go find other molecules to bond with, that releases some energy. Thus NET ENERGY is heavily favored in the exothermic (release of energy) direction. When enough of those super weak bonds are broken, and when enough of the strong bonds are formed rapidly, you have a simultaneous release of a huge amount of heat --- an explosion. Sorry if that's a little long, but I tried to explain your questions. (Which was a fundamentally very interesting question!)

12y ago