Chemical Bonds

      Hey guys Ion_Turtle's back. Today I'm talking about chemical bonds. Chemical bonds are really cool. They make up everything around you. Here are some gifs of really cool ones.

Now to explain what happens. To understand what happens we have to revisit atome. An atom is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons (positive) and neutrons (no charge) are in a clump in the center called the nucleus. Electrons (negative) fly around the outside. They fly around in shells. each shell holds a certain amount of electrons. The first shell can hold a maximum of two. While the second can hold a maximum of eight. The electrons in the outermost shell are called valence electrons. The area where these electrons orbit isn't perfect. It is a rough sphere that is fuzzy because they move very fast. It is called the cloud.

An atom can be stable or unstable. If it is stable then it's outer shell is full. If it is unstable then it's outer shell isn't full.

A chemical bond is when two atoms combine. There are two different types of chemical bonds, covalent and ionic. A covalent bond is created when two or more atoms combine and share an electron.

An ionic bond is created when two atoms meet and one takes an electron from the other. The one that took the electron becomes negative while the other one becomes positive. If you have ever used a magnet then you know opposites attract. That means that the positive atom and the negative atom stick together. The force sticking them together is electrostatic attraction.

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Gifs

Cloud pic

Neon

Covalent Bond

The Periodic Table of elements

Hello everyone I am Ion_Turtle and I'm back! Today I'm talking about the periodic table of elements.



      The periodic table might look menacing, but its really not. Its very simple. The periodic table is a list of all the elements in the universe. It puts elements in different places based n their properties. The number of electron shells in an atom determines its properties. (I have an earlier post all about atoms) The person who made the periodic table of elements was Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. He was a Russian chemistry teacher. He also has a giant messy beard.

      If you look at the periodic table you will see a lot of squares. Each of these squares has a one or two letters in it. Those letters represent an element. If you look at the top right you will see a square with the letter "H" in it. (For an interactive table Click here! ) The "H" represents hydrogen the first element. If you look above it you will see the number one. That represents the number of protons (or electrons) in the element. Across it on the right you will see the symbol "He" (helium) with the number two above it. It has two protons. Then the next one has a three, then a four. This is because the table is made so that as you go down the rows the number of protons goes up. The average weight of each element is also on the table. It is found under the symbol.


      The table has different sections. One way of sectioning off different elements is in groups and periods. Groups are vertical columns. There are 18 of them. All the elements in a group have similar properties. This is because it shows how many electrons are in the last shell of the elements.


      As you can see this Lithium atom has one full shell with 2 electrons and another shell with just one. It is in the first group. The elements in the last group (18) have their last shell full.
      The table is also separated into periods. Periods are the horizontal rows. The period represents the number of electron shells that an element has. If you look back up at Lithium you will see that it has 2 shells. It is also in the second period or row. As you read across a period the number of electrons in the last shell increases.


The periodic table can also be separated based on the properties of the element. This is usually done with colors. The colors won't be the same on each table but the elements will be separated the same.

      All the way on the left (orange in the picture above) are the Alkali Metals. They dissolve in water. (Please note that Hydrogen is above the Alkali Metals but is not one of them) Next (yellow) is the Alkaline Earth Metals. They also dissolve in water. The biggest section (purplish) is the Transition Metals. They are strong and shiny. Followed by (bright blue) the Poor Metals. They are soft with low melting points. The Semimetals (not shown) conduct electricity only under certain conditions making them great for electronics.  Next (green) is the Nonmetals This section contains some of the elements essential to life. (Carbon and Oxygen) The Noble Gasses (Grayish blue) are next. They don't really react with anything else. The two rows that are commonly taken out and placed at the bottom are also grouped. The top row is the Lanthanoids and the row under it is the Actinoids.

Fun Fact:

Any element above 92 (uranium) is to unstable to occur in nature and has to be made in a lab.

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Periodic Table pic
Hydrogen symbol
Lithium atom
Mendeleev

Compounds and Mixtures

Hello everyone! Its Ion_Turtle and today I'm talking about compounds and mixtures.

Compounds and mixtures are very different. Compounds are combined chemically, but mixture are combined physically. A compound is created when two or more atoms combine. Like water. Water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. When too atoms combine they share one or more electrons. In water the oxygen atom wants 2 more electrons and each hydrogen want another one. If you look at the atom picture below you will see that there are 2 electrons where the hydrogen meets the oxygen. Those are the shared electrons.

You can see the shared electrons



Salt is also a compound. It is made of sodium (A deadly metal) and chloride (A deadly gas), but when they are combined they make table salt. Because compounds are made by a chemical reaction it is very hard to split it.

Mixtures are very different. They are blended without any chemical change. Each substance keeps its own properties. A mixture is also very easy to separate. A salad is a mixture. This is because you take lettuce, tomatoes, and croutons and combine them. The separate ingredients stay the same when you mix them. You can also easily separate them. They can be heterogeneous or homogeneous. Homogeneous mixtures are mixtures where something dissolved in a liquid. Like salt water or lemonade mix. The salt in the salt water can not be seen and it is spread evenly throughout the water. Heterogeneous mixture are like salads. They do not combine. When you look at a salad you see the individual ingredients.

 

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Water atom

Salt Water

Tasty salad



Awesome Atoms

Hello everyone I am Ion Turtle and today I am talking about a very small topic. Atoms! Atoms are tiny. Extremely tiny and they make up everything. Literally everything! They make up your shoes, your book, a bicycle, computers, and even you. Yes you are made of atoms. They are so small that it would take 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms to make you. That’s a lot.

The name atom came from a Greek man named Democritus. He thought that eventually you would get to the point where you can’t split it anymore. He called it atoms after the Greek word atomos that means indivisible. Later another guy named John Dalton changed the definition of an atom to the smallest thing that still contains its chemical properties. That means that if you take a carbon atom and split it then it is no longer like carbon in any way.

John Dalton

            Atoms are made of even smaller things. They have an inner part called the nucleus that is made of two different parts. It has protons and neutrons. Protons are positively charged and neutrons have no charge. There are particles that circle around the nucleus called electrons. They are negatively charged and balance out the positive charge of the protons. They also move near the speed of light. That’s really fast. Electrons stay in shells. Each shell has a maximum capacity of electrons. The first one can only have 2 electrons. The second has a maximum of 8. Atoms are made mostly out of empty space. So that means space is made of space.



I hope you enjoyed leaning about atoms. Leave a comment on how I can improve or about what you liked.
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John Dalton pic
Atom pic
Space pic
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