Question

How can I remember what ionic bonding is?

Answer 1

Ionic bonding is when atoms lose or gain an electron and then bind. This makes them positive and negative respectively. And now that they have a charge, they can bind with an atom of a opposite charge. Because an ion is an atom which has lost or gained and electron and has a charge, think of ions as magnets

Magnets must be opposite charges to stick together (+ goes with -). Ions must have opposite charges to stick together

Answer 2

Also, when atoms bond in ionic bonding, one of the atoms must give some electrons to the other atom so that they will have opposite charges.
For example, if you two atoms, say oxygen. Oxygen has 8 electrons and 8 protons. Recall that electrons have a negative charge and protons have a positive charge. If one of the oxygen atoms gives two electrons to the other one, the first oxygen atom will have 8 protons and 6 electrons while the second oxygen atom will have 8 protons and 10 electrons. The first oxygen atom will have a charge of +2(2 more protons than electrons) and the other one will have a charge of -2(2 more electrons than protons). These ions or "magnets" will attract and we have ionic bonding.

Answer 3

One more thing. I don't know if you need to know this, but it still good to learn. Atoms have rings of electrons surrounding the nucleus. The innermost ring has two electrons and then every ring after that has a maximum of 8. The electrons in the outermost rings are called valence electrons and these are the ones that go around forming bonds with other atoms. Each atom wants to fill their rings with 8 electrons each(except the first ring which wants 2). When ionic bonding happens, atoms try to give all their valance electrons or take in enough electrons so that their outermost ring is filled with 8 electrons.

Answer 4

In ionic bonding the atoms is arranged in a specific pattern called lattice,and the amount of lattice energy determines how strongly they are bonded unlike covalent bonds(except for diamonds).