Let's say water is attracting a H atom. That's hydrogen bonding, but can this also act as ionic bonding?

It just wouldn't hold like an ionic bond would (of course i guess there wouldn't any ionic bonds around anyways), It would just stop by to say hi and zip off.

Edited February 1, 201015 yr by Red7

If the water managed to pull that hydrogen completely off the other moleules (i.e deprotonate it) then you'd have an ionic interaction. I think ionic bonds are typically reserved for things like Na+ and Cl- in a lattice.

No. Ionic bonding occurs when one molecule loses an electron and one gains an electron or. The resulting exchange creates a cation and an anion held together by their opposite charges. Hydrogen bonds are similar to ionic bonds in that respect, however they are bonds of partial charges; charges created by the polar properties of the molecule that don't quite equal enough of a force to be a true strong bond. Virtually anything that hydrogen bonds has a polar-covalent bond and an electron exchange would involve the breaking of the bond (as in deprotonation mentioned by Horza2002) to form another compound. So water cannot create an ionic bond without losing an atom of some kind.

If the water managed to pull that hydrogen completely off the other moleules (i.e deprotonate it) then you'd have an ionic interaction. I think ionic bonds are typically reserved for things like Na+ and Cl- in a lattice.

 

That would be possible with H3O+, then... right?

yes. for example...if you have HCl acid...what u really have is H3O+ and Cl-....in this case there will be ionic interactions seeing as there are ions involved.

Well, there is the equilibrium that occurs with water.

 

2H2O <----> OH- + H3O+

 

I believe that's it.

 

So, in that sense, yes, water can become ionic.

In principle yes, there is that equilibrium. But in practise the equilbrium will lie well on the side of 2 H2O.

 

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/acidbaseeqia/kw.html

 

That link exaplins what is kown as the ionic product of water, Kw. It calculates that at any one time, there is only 1x10(-7) M of the ionic form ion water so it is indeed tiny.