How firm a chemical bond is depends on how you break it!

What is it about?

Chemical bonds hold atoms together to form molecules, shaping how substances behave and react. Their strength determines nearly everything, from the structure of matter to the way chemical reactions go. In contrast to what may people assume, the strength of a bond is not uniquely defined. Its strength depends on how you break the bond, into which molecular fragments. This circumstance is illustrated through our quantum chemical analyses in which break a series of bonds each in three different ways.

Featured Image

Photo by Shavonne Yu on Unsplash

Photo by Shavonne Yu on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Understanding how chemical bond strengths change is essential for developing new materials and improving our knowledge of chemistry. We explore why some bonds are stronger or weaker depending on how they break apart. We show that these differences come from the unique ways atoms interact when a bond breaks, which depends on their electronic structure. By uncovering these patterns, our work helps scientists better predict and design new molecules and materials with desired properties.

Perspectives

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Chemical Bonding remains a very hot topic in chemistry. But what is often overlooked is that the nature and strength of a chemical bond are only completely defined when considering both the molecule in which the bond exists and the fragments from which it forms or into which it dissociates.

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Chemical bonding models are incomplete if they are unable to account for the fact that bond strength is an energy difference. It does not depend only on the molecule in which it features but inevitably also on the fragments into which it can break apart... and it can do so in various ways.

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