General Chemistry 2

2nd Semester 2018-2019

SOLIDS AND THEIR PROPERTIES

Two General Types of Solids
Crystalline Solids
- Solids which has a well-defined shape. Atoms in these solids are arranged in an orderly
repeating manner as shown

Figure 1.
Simple Presentation in the Arrangement of
Atoms in a crystalline solid

Ex. Diamond, graphite

Table Salt (NaCl), Table Sugar (C12H22O11)

Amorphous Solids
- has poorly defined shape. Atoms are arranged in random

Figure 2.
Simple Presentation in the Arrangement of
Atoms in an amorphous solid.

Ex. Charcoal, Plastic

Glass, Rubber Band

Table 1. Properties of Crystalline and Amorphous Solid

Criteria Crystalline Solid Amorphous Solid
Shape Definite and geometrical form No definite geometrical form
Melt over a wide range of
Melting Point Well-Defined melting point
temperature
Rigid and cannot be
Compressibility Some are soft
compressed
Perfect cleavage when Irregular cleavage when
Cleavage broken into pieces on plane broken into pieces on plane
surfaces surfaces
 General Chemistry 2
2nd Semester 2018-2019

❖ CRYSTALLINE SOLIDS

1. Unit cell- smallest unit of volume of a crystal that shows all the characteristic of the
crystal’s pattern.

Table 2. The Unit Cell Relationship for the Seven Crystal Systems

X-Ray Diffraction
- is a technique used to determine the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, wherein
atoms cause a beams of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions.

Types of Crystalline Solids

Metallic
- made of atoms that are readily loss electrons to form positive ions (cations), but no
atoms in crystal would readily gain electrons.
- explained by “electron-sea model”.

Electron-sea model
It proposes that all the metal atoms in the sample losses their valence electrons to
form an electron “sea” that is delocalized throughout the piece. The metal ions are
submerged and arranged in an orderly manner as shown,
 General Chemistry 2
2nd Semester 2018-2019

Figure 3. Illustration of the Electron-sea Model

Ionic
- are made of ions (cations and anions). These ions form strong electrostatic interactions
that hold the crystal lattice together. Typical example is the table salt

Figure 4. Sodium ion Na+ and Chloride ion, Cl- at lattice points of NaCl Crystal

Molecular

- are made of atoms, such as in noble gases, or molecules, such as in sugar, C 12H22O11,
iodine, I2, and naphthalene, C10H8. The atoms or molecules are held together by a mix of
hydrogen bonding/dipole-dipole and dispersion forces, and these are the attractive forces
that are broken when the crystal melts.

Network-Covalent

- are made of atoms in which each atom is covalently bonded to its nearest neighbors. The
atoms can be made of one type of atom (e.g. Cdiamond and Cgraphite) or can be made of different
atoms (e.g. SiO2 and BN). In a network solid, there are no individual molecules and the entire
crystal may be considered one very large molecule.
 General Chemistry 2
2nd Semester 2018-2019

Table 3. Comparison of Types of Solids