Hi, today I read some of the beginning chapters of a biology text book. Some of the topics it covered involved the molecules of life. During the discussion, it talked about the weak bonds that hold macromolecules together. In the chapter, it classified ionic bonds as weak bonds along with hydrogen bondng and van der Waals interactions. I was wondering if this is true because I always thought that ionic bonds were strong and only weak when dissolved in a polar solvent. Anyways, any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
I think that ionic bonds are considered as weak bonds due to their occurence in aqueous environment… As you see that mostly life beings are consisted by water and you know how ionic compounds will react through polar solvent like water…. 😉
When an ionic bond is broken "in a vacuum", you have to isolated ions, charged particles, when you break the bond in water then these ions react with the polar solvent, compensating its charge into bonds with the H20, this greatly stabilizes the "bond breaking".
