Question

would a substance with stronger or weaker bonds crush more eaily?

Answer 1

You could think of a molecule like a family. Families with stronger bonds require more to break them apart; families with weaker bonds break apart more easily.

Answer 2

Weak bonds crush eaily because they don't need a large amount of energy to break due to normal conditions.

Answer 3

Stronger bonds can melt more easily because they have weak forces of attraction between the molecules.

Answer 4

...so, were you coming up with a question for other people to think about to help them study?

Answer 5

No, those are my answers to the queestions. The first one has been answered, but the second is: "Would a substance with stronger or weaker bonds melt more easily" Explain.

Answer 6

Crushing a material and melting a material are the same idea for the purposes of this question.

Answer 7

So weaker bonds can melt more easily?

Answer 8

yes

Answer 9

Why because their forces are weak and they don't have an attration??

Answer 10

It depends. For all molecular substances, the strength of the substance has nothing to do with the strength of the substance. For example, one of the strongest known chemical bonds is the nitrogen triple bond holding N2 molecules together, while the H-Cl single bond holding HCl molecules together is quite weak. Yet solid N2 is much more easily crushed (and melts at a much lower temperature) than solid HCl.

The reason is because the crushing of the solid depends on the strength of intermolecular, not bonding, forces -- the forces *between* and not *within* each molecule. In the case of N2, there are only very weak dispersion forces between the molecules, while between HCl molecules you have much stronger dipole forces.

With ionic solids, we have to ask more precisely what you mean by "crush." If you mean literally crush, like squeeze with a big flat surface, then ionic substances are very resistant to crushing, because you must pull apart the ions that make up the solid, and these are held together by very strong electrostatic forces. In this case, indeed the stronger the "bonding" force between ions, the stronger the material, all other things being equal. But they're aren't all that often equal: the forces between ions in an ionic solid also depend strongly on the size of the ions (beause the electrostatic force varies strongly with distance) and the exact arrangement of ions in the solid.

Furthermore, if by "crush" you mean "resist a blow" then the story is quite different: ionic solids are quite brittle, and a sharp blow will often fracture them. That's because their structural integrity depends on a very precise arrangement of the ions. Disturb the arrangement slightly (e.g. by a sharp blow that displaces ions a little bit along one plane) and the whole shebang can easily fall apart.

Metals and so-called "network solids" like solid carbon, silica (SiO2) and ice are in still another category, because in these cases actual chemical bonds *do* need to be broken to crush or deform the solid. Only in these cases is the entire solid held together by chemical bonds. (Ice is held together by an extremely weak and peculiar form of bond called a hydrogen bond, however.) In these cases the solids are indeed very resistant to crushing or fracture, because of the need to break strong chemical bonds. (Ice is only relatively hard to break, however, because of the weakness of the hydrogen bond. That is, it's easy to break compared to, say, silica, but quite hard to break compared to other molecular compound solids, like CH4.)

Metals are in still another category, because in these cases the chemical bonds holding the atoms together are very easy to deform into different directions, without losing their strength. So metals can deform without breaking, which is why they can be shaped and forged without breaking or needing to be melted first.

Its is very important that you understand the difference between chemical bonding forecs, that hold molecules (and metals and network solids) together, and intermolecular forces, which hold molecular solids together.