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Nonmetals, including (to a limited extent) xenon and probably radon, usually exist as anions or oxyanions in aqueous solution; they generally form ionic or covalent compounds when combined with metals (unlike metals, which mostly form alloys with other metals); and have acidic oxides whereas the common oxides of nearly all metals are basic.
All four elements tend to form primarily ionic compounds with metals, [136] in contrast to the remaining nonmetals (except for oxygen) which tend to form primarily covalent compounds with metals. [x] The highly reactive and strongly electronegative nature of the halogen nonmetals epitomizes nonmetallic character. [140]
This often causes ionic compounds to be very stable. Ionic bonds have high bond energy. Bond energy is the mean amount of energy required to break the bond in the gaseous state. Most ionic compounds exist in the form of a crystal structure, in which the ions occupy the corners of the crystal.
A typical feature of ionic bonds is that the species form into ionic crystals, in which no ion is specifically paired with any single other ion in a specific directional bond. Rather, each species of ion is surrounded by ions of the opposite charge, and the spacing between it and each of the oppositely charged ions near it is the same for all ...
Inorganic compounds exhibit a range of bonding properties. Some are ionic compounds, consisting of very simple cations and anions joined by ionic bonding.Examples of salts (which are ionic compounds) are magnesium chloride MgCl 2, which consists of magnesium cations Mg 2+ and chloride anions Cl −; or sodium hydroxide NaOH, which consists of sodium cations Na + and hydroxide anions OH −.
Ionic compounds can also be produced from their constituent ions by evaporation of their solvent, precipitation, freezing, a solid-state reaction, or the electron transfer reaction of reactive metals with reactive non-metals, such as halogen gases. Ionic compounds typically have high melting and boiling points, and are hard and brittle.
The cation is always named first. Ions can be metals, non-metals or polyatomic ions. Therefore, the name of the metal or positive polyatomic ion is followed by the name of the non-metal or negative polyatomic ion. The positive ion retains its element name whereas for a single non-metal anion the ending is changed to -ide.
The chemical elements can be broadly divided into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals according to their shared physical and chemical properties.All elemental metals have a shiny appearance (at least when freshly polished); are good conductors of heat and electricity; form alloys with other metallic elements; and have at least one basic oxide.