Forming Covalent Bonds

Covalent bonds are formed when two atoms share a pair of electrons.
This primarily occurs between non-metal atoms.
Each bond consists of a shared pair of electrons, thus each atom gets the benefit of an extra electron without the commitment of transferring electrons entirely.
The atoms involved can thereby reach a stable electron arrangement, typically achieving a noble gas configuration.
The shared electrons are strongly attracted to the positively charged nuclei of both atoms, keeping them closely bound together.
The number of covalent bonds an atom can form depends on the number of electrons it needs to achieve a full outer energy level.
Molecules with single, double, or triple covalent bonds are commonly found in nature, the strength of the bond increasing with the number of shared electron pairs.
Some familiar examples include water (H2O), which consists of two covalent bonds, and carbon dioxide (CO2), which contains two double covalent bonds.
In terms of molecular structures, molecules can be simple ones, like carbon dioxide, or intricate and vast, like the structure in diamond or the complex grid in a polymer.
A covalent structure can be depicted by a dot-and-cross diagram, where shared electron pairs are represented by a single line.
One characteristic feature of covalent compounds is their tendency to be poor conductors of electricity due to the lack of free moving charged particles.
They also generally have low boiling and melting points because the weak intermolecular forces present in covalent molecules break down easily under heat.
Understanding the formation of covalent bonds is crucial to grasping the fundamental aspects of chemistry to solve problems and predict the properties of molecules.