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Question

What is meaning of Non directional bond in simple terms?

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Solution

Let us take the example of formation of NaCl (ionic bond formation, non directional or multidirectional) and HCl (covalent bond formation, directional).

In first case, Na after losing one electron becomes Na+ and Cl after gaining becomes Cl-. Now since they are point charges, they have spherical symmetry of their electric fields which means they can attract oppositely charged ions from any direction in space (for better understanding consider you have placed a magnet on a table, then you have distributed small iron pieces around it within its range. As you know it will attract all the iron pieces around it no matter what will be the direction of force ). So, these forces are non directional forces, as it doesn't act in a specific direction and hence the ionic bond so formed between Na+ and Cl- is a non -directional bond.

Now, you can easily understand what is a directional bond? As you know, for the formation of HCl, H atom shares it's 1 electron with Cl atom and same is done by Cl atom. So the covalent bond,that hold together these atoms, is due to the two electrons which they are sharing. Now these shared electrons are continuously roaming in the direction of the line joining the centers of the two atoms binding the two atoms with each other (this can be a way to imagine that covalent bond). Hence the net force in this case is specified in one direction i.e. in the direction of line joining the centers of the atoms. So that's why a covalent bond is termed as a directional bond.



The meaning of covalent bonds being directional is that atoms bondedcovalently prefer specific orientations in space relative to one another. As a result, molecules in which atoms are bonded covalently have definite shapes.
Ionic bond is non directional , because charge is uniform in all direction . An ion is surrounded by other ion from all the direction . But covalent and coordinate bond are formed by one side only hence are directional


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