Exaplin why structural formulas cannot be ionic substances?

Answer 1

Structural formulae are usually used to describe covalent molecular compounds. It is illogical to use structural formulae to describe ionic compounds because ionic compounds are typically lattice structures. This means that they are electrostatically fixed to one another, and what would normally be considered molecules run together as ions bond to multiple other ions.

For example, NaCl would not look like:

Na+-Cl-

But rather-

(Na+)-(Cl-)-(Na+)-(Cl-)- (etc.)

(Cl-)-(Na+)-(Cl-)- (Na+)-etc

(Na+)-(Cl-)-(Na+)-(Cl-)- (etc.)

etc.- etc- etc- etc

Answer 2

Structural formulas are used to represent covalent compounds where atoms share electrons. In contrast, ionic compounds involve the transfer of electrons from one atom to another to form ions. Covalent compounds cannot be accurately represented using ionic structural formulas because covalent bonds involve the sharing of electrons, not the transfer of electrons.