What type of chemical bond results in a transfer of electrons from one atom to another?
An ionic bond results from the transfer of an electron from one element to another. This makes the two ions oppositely charged and so attracted to each other. e.g in NaCl, (salt) Na gives up an electron to Cl to form Na+Cl- which are then attracted to each other. A covalent bond is where the electrons from different atoms are ‘shared’. e.g. hydrogen gas is H2 each hydrogen has 1 electron and they mix them together to give 2 electrons, a complete electron shell. (It’s actually much more complicated than that but trust me you really don’t want me to get into molecular orbitals and so forth).
