Metallic bonding

• Metallic bonding

  Occurs between metals only

  Positive metal ions are surrounded by a sea of delocalised electrons

  There are strong electrostatic forces of attraction between the posistive metal ions and negatively charged electrons
• Pure metals


  Often too soft for many uses because their particles are all the same size, meaning the layers can slide over each other easily. They are usually mixtured with other metals to make alloys
• Alloys


  Mixture of two or more metals. It introduces different sized metal atoms which disrupts the regular arrangement of the pure metal atoms, meaning the layers can no longer slide over each other. This makes alloys stronger and harder as they cannot be bent and shaped as easily.
• metallic bond