Now, ionic binding represents a type of chemical bonding. Here the attractive force is between the opposing charges of a cation which is positive and an anion which is negative. We're going to say here, recall that metals tend to lose their valence electrons, and nonmetals tend to gain electrons.
We're going to say here that ionic bonding itself, the ionic bond formation, helps to lower the potential energies of the cation and the anion. This lowering of energy basically entails them releasing their excess energy. This releasing of energy can be thought of as an exothermic reaction. So when we talk about thermochemistry and we're talking about the releasing of energy, we use the term exothermic.
So if we take a look here, we have sodium and we have chlorine. Sodium is a metal. Sodium will want to give away its electron so that it becomes Na+ and becomes more like a noble gas. So it gave up its electrons. So now it's Na+. Chlorine has its seven original electrons and it just gained that electron from sodium. So now it has one additional electron and that gives it a Cl- charge.
If there are opposing charges. Remember opposites attract their opposing charges is what makes them attracted to one another. So because of this they will combine together to give me sodium chloride as my ionic solid. So just remember when it comes to my ionic bond, we first have to have the transferring of the electron from the metal to the non-metal to create opposing charges. Those opposite charges cause the ions to combine together to form my ionic compound at the end.
