Electrostatic force between electron pairs

The magnetic forces between electrons are negligibly small compared to the electrostatic forces, and they are of no importance in determining the distribution of the electrons in a molecule and therefore in the formation of chemical bonds. The only forces that are important in determining the distribution of electrons in atoms and molecules, and therefore in determining their properties, are the electrostatic forces between electrons and nuclei. Nevertheless electron spin plays a very important role in chemical bonding through the Pauli principle, which we discuss next. It provides the fundamental reason why electrons in molecules appear to be found in pairs as Lewis realized but could not explain. 

Ion pairing is due to electrostatic forces between ions of opposite charges in a medium of moderate to low relative permittivities. It should be distinguished from complex formation between metal cations and anionic ligands, in which coordinative bonds (donation of an electron pair) takes place. One distingnishing feature is that, contrary to complex formation, the association is nondirectional in space. The association of a cation and an anion to form an ion pair can, however, be represented as an equilibrium reaction by analogy to complex formation with an equilibrium constant A)ass [3,5]. If a is the fraction of the electrolyte that is dissociating into ions and therefore (1 - a) is the fraction that is associated, then... 

Electrostatic Model. A simple model that can account for the observed bond angles in a qualitative way comes from a consideration of electrostatic repulsions of electron pairs. Let us consider electron pairs around an atom as concentrations of charge placed on a more or less spherical surface, and let us assume that the electrons can move in pairs. Barring other forces, the most likely arrangement will be the one where the electron pairs exert the minimum repulsion on each other. This will be achieved when the electrons get as far away from each other as possible. Since the electrons are restricted by our assumption to a sphere, the maximum distance of separation corresponds to a maximum angle between their positions and the center of the sphere. 

Unlike the forces between ions which are electrostatic and without direction, covalent bonds are directed in space. For a simple molecule or covalently bonded ion made up of typical elements the shape is nearly always decided by the number of bonding electron pairs and the number of lone pairs (pairs of electrons not involved in bonding) around the central metal atom, which arrange themselves so as to be as far apart as possible because of electrostatic repulsion between the electron pairs. Table 2.8 shows the essential shape assumed by simple molecules or ions with one central atom X. Carbon is able to form a great many covalently bonded compounds in which there are chains of carbon atoms linked by single covalent bonds. In each case where the carbon atoms are joined to four other atoms the essential orientation around each carbon atom is tetrahedral. 

Parallel molecular dynamics codes are distinguished by their methods of dividing the force evaluation workload among the processors (or nodes). The force evaluation is naturally divided into bonded terms, approximating the effects of covalent bonds and involving up to four nearby atoms, and pairwise nonbonded terms, which account for the electrostatic, dispersive, and electronic repulsion interactions between atoms that are not covalently bonded. The nonbonded forces involve interactions between all pairs of particles in the system and hence require time proportional to the square of the number of atoms. Even when neglected outside of a cutoff, nonbonded force evaluations represent the vast majority of work involved in a molecular dynamics simulation. 

Covalent bonding is the electrostatic force of attraction of two nuclei each with a shared pair of electrons between them. 

The forces involved in chemistry are essentially electrostatic. They are variants on the Coulomb force. We can distinguish two orders primary forces and secondary forces. Primary forces are those which hold the atoms together in molecules, and the oppositely charged ions in crystalline salts. Respectively, they are known as covalency and electrovalency (or, sometimes, the ionic force). The latter is directly electrostatic, the mutual attraction between Na+ and Cl" in common salt, for example. The former is usually figured as the sharing of an electron-pair between two atoms— Cl-Cl in the chlorine molecule, where the bond stands for a shared pair of electrons. We need quantum mechanics to understand why, in certain circumstances, electron density builds up in the region between the two chlorine atoms. Granted that it does so, we can explain the covalent bond as due to a resultant electrostatic effect. 

The familiar Lewis structure is the simplest bonding model in common use in organic chemistry. It is based on the idea that, at the simplest level, the ionic bonding force arises from the electrostatic attraction between ions of opposite charge, and the covalent bonding force arises from sharing of electron pairs between atoms. 

The combined effect of attraction and repulsion forces has been treated by many investigators in terms borrowed from theories of colloidal stability (Weiss, 1972). These theories treat the adhesion of colloidal particles by taking into account three types of forces (a) electrostatic repulsion force (Hogg, Healy Fuerstenau, 1966) (b) London-Van der Waals molecular attraction force (Hamaker, 1937) (c) gravity force. The electrostatic repulsion force is due to the negative charges that exist on the cell membrane and on the deposition surface because of the development of electrostatic double layers when they are in contact with a solution. The London attraction force is due to the time distribution of the movement of electrons in each molecule and, therefore, it exists between each pair of molecules and consequently between each pair of particles. For example, this force is responsible, among other phenomena, for the condensation of vapors to liquids. 

---