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Learn about the basic principles of chemical composition in living organisms, including the structure of atoms and molecules, and the different types of chemical bonds that hold them together.
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The Chemistry of Life Anatomy and Physiology
Matter • Matter is anything that takes up space and has mass. • Matter consists of elements that possess unique physical and chemical properties. • Elements are represented by chemical symbols of one or two letters, such as C (carbon), Ca (calcium), H (hydrogen), O (oxygen), N (nitrogen), and P (phosphorus). • The smallest quantity of an element that still possesses the characteristics of that element is an atom.
Matter Atoms chemically bond together to form molecules, and the composition of a molecule is given by its chemical formula (O2, H2O, C6H12O6). When the atoms in a molecule are different, the molecule is a compound (H2O and C6H12O6, but not O2).
Atomic Structure The atoms of every element consist of a nucleus of positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. Negatively charged electrons are arranged outside the nucleus.
Atomic Structure • The atoms of each element differ by their number of protons, neutrons, and electrons. For example, hydrogen has one proton, one electron, and no neutrons, while carbon has six protons, six neutrons, and six electrons. • The number and arrangement of electrons of an atom determine the kinds of chemical bonds that it forms and how it reacts with other atoms to form molecules.
Chemical Bonds • There are three kinds of chemical bonds. • Ionic • Covalent • Hydrogen
Ionic Bonds • Ionic bonds form between two atoms when one or more electrons are completelytransferred from one atom to the other. • The atom that gains electrons has an overall negative charge, and the atom that givesup electrons has an overall positive charge. • Because of their positive or negative charges, these atoms are ions.
Ionic Bonds • The attraction of the positive ion to the negative ion constitutes the ionic bond. Sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) form ions (Na+ and Cl−), which attract one another to form the ionic bond in a sodium chloride (NaCl) molecule. • A plus or minus sign following a chemical symbol indicates an ion with a positive or negative charge that results from the loss or gain of one or more electrons, respectively. Numbers preceding the charges indicate ions whose charges are greater than one (Ca2+, PO32−).
Covalent Bonds • Covalent bonds form when electrons are shared between atoms. That is, neither atom completely retains possession of the electrons (as happens with atoms that form ionic bonds). • A single covalent bond occurs when two electrons are shared (one from each atom). A double or triple covalent bond is formed when four or six electrons are shared, respectively. • When the two atoms sharing electrons are exactly the same, as in a molecule of oxygen gas (two oxygen atoms to form O2), the electrons are shared equally, and the bond is a nonpolar covalent bond.
Covalent Bonds • When the atoms are different, such as in a molecule of water (H2O), the larger nucleus of the oxygen atom exerts a strongerpull on the shared electrons than does the single proton that makes up either hydrogen nucleus. • In this case, a polar covalent bond is formed because the unequal distribution of the electrons creates areas within the molecule that have either a negative or positive charge (or pole), as shown in Figure 1a.
Hydrogen Bonds • Hydrogen bonds are weak bonds that form between the positively charged hydrogen atom in one covalently bonded molecule and the negatively charged area of another covalently bonded molecule. • Water, for example, forms hydrogen bonds between water molecules. • Since the atoms in water form a polar covalent bond, the positive area in H2O around the hydrogen proton attracts the negative areas in an adjacent H2O molecule. This attraction forms the hydrogen bond (Figure 1b).
