Covalency, a term describing bonding by sharing electrons, divides opinion when mentioned alongside hydrogen bonding. Worried that the concept of hydrogen bonding has been getting fuzzier over time, scientists in Germany have sought a fresh look at the very nature of these bonds, and how much covalency they involve.
Richard Dronskowski and colleagues at RWTH Aachen University collected evidence from hydrogen-bonded molecular crystals to elucidate how these crystals are held together and compare the covalency of long and short hydrogen bonds.
Read the full article in Chemistry World»
Read the original journal article in ChemComm – it’s free to access until 13th November:
Covalency of hydrogen bonds in solids revisited
Volker L. Deringer, Ulli Englert and Richard Dronskowski
Chem. Commun., 2014,50, 11547-11549, DOI: 10.1039/C4CC04716H
