Transdisciplinary Animation

Bonding

Atoms need stability. They do so by bonding with other atoms either of the same element or from different elements. Stability can be achieved by completing the outer shells of atoms. That involves either, giving, sharing or stealing electrons from other atoms. Certain elements act in a certain way when it comes to bonding. When a metal and a non metal bond, an ionic bonds is formed. When two non metals bond, a covalent bond is formed. When two metals bond, a metallic bond is formed.

I will mainly look at ionic and covalent bonding.

Ionic Bonds

Ionic bonding involves both sharing and stealing electrons. An atom shares an electron thus making it positively charged (cation)  and the other atom accepts the electron and this atom becomes negatively charged (anion). Electrostatic attraction occurs and an ionic bond forms. Electrostatic forces hold the atoms together. The resulting products are called salts.

Metals are the ones that give the electrons and non metals are the ones that receive electrons. Metals act this way because they have delocalized electrons in their outer shells which is an important feature in metallic bonding.

Columbo's Law states that the higher ions are charged, the stronger the bond. This could be measured through the number of valence electrons. Refer to the chart below.

The number of incomplete outer shells (one dot) determines the charge of non metals. 

Covalent Bonds

In covalent bonding, electrons are shared. No ions are involved because neither loses or gains an electron. This type of bonding can be found mostly between non metals. Covalent bonding stabilizes incomplete outer shells by sharing valence electrons to complete them (two dots). Depending on the number of free valence electrons, there could be single, double or triple bonds. 

Here is an example

Covalent bonds can be either polar or non polar. 

Non Polar covalent bonds occur when a covalent bond forms between two atoms that have the same electronegativity. 

Here is a chart for electronegativity

Polar covalent bonds occur when a covalent bond forms between two atoms that don't have the same electronegativity. Atoms with a higher amount of electronegativity pull the valence electrons of other atoms towards them. The resulting molecule is a dipole. This affects the shape of the resulting molecule. It also affects the polarity of the molecule. Water for example is a polar molecule because it has a slightly negative oxygen end and slightly positive hydrogen ends. This is so because oxygen is more electronegative than hydrogen which means the valence electrons pull towards it. Water being a polar molecule makes it a perfect solvent. The slightly positive poles attract negatively charged ions and the slightly negative pole attract positively charged ions. 

eg. NaCl (Table salt) dissolves in water because the anion part of it (Cl) is attracted to the positive ends of the water molecule (H) while the cation part of it (Na) is attracted to the negative end of water (O)

From this research, I think I've pin-pointed the key element for my transdisciplinary animation project; Valence electrons. Valence electrons can be transferred or shared, thus, it could represent the common elements between different genres. I could also use my previous research to show the different energy produced based on the union of two genres as an exothermic reaction; the resulting mood/tone shown visually through colours. Next step is to research about different genres and look at colour theory. 

References

http://www.shmoop.com/bonds-orbitals/bonding.html

http://www.shmoop.com/organic-chemistry/bonding.html

http://drjuanamendenhall.pbworks.com/f/Valence%2BElectron_0001.jpg

http://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Organic_Chemistry/Fundamentals/Ionic_and_Covalent_Bonds

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/ch4nh3h2o.GIF

http://users.stlcc.edu/gkrishnan/polar.html

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch8/graphics/fig8_8.gif

Level 2 Chemistry Learning Workbook - Alex Eames and Dorothy Kane Published by ESA