How can you figure out how many bonds an element can make by using the periodic table?

Answer 1

You can tell how many bonds that a particular element is going to make by the amount of valance electrons that the element has, and how many that it needs to achieve a noble gas configuration.

E.G. H20, aka Water.

the oxygen would make one bond with each hydrogen atom as hydrogen will try to achieve the noble configuration as helium, with 2 electrons. And oxygen will try to gain 2 electrons, to have a total of 8 electrons in its outer shell.

Answer 2

Around the outside of an atom, there are things called electrons. For example carbon has 6. These are arranged in shells (energy levels), and the one nearest the atom fills up first. In the first shell, there can be up to two electrons, and (until you get to A'level, when it gets a bit more complicated) in all the other shells-2nd, 3rd and so on- there are 8. So for carbon, 2 of its electrons would be in the first energy level, and the remaining 4 would be in the 2nd level. They fill up the shell singly as far as possible, and it would look like this (2d)...

Don't worry about the things in the middle...

each one of the electrons in the outermost shell can bond with another atom, well, I should say has the potential to bond with another atom, as it depends what that atom is.

for example carbon dioxide CO2...

This is not that good an example because as you can see the carbon atom uses two electrons per bond. For now we can think of this as because each atom wants a full outer shell, so the carbon wants to share 4 of the oxygen's electrons with it. If you look closely, both the carbon and the oxygen have a full outer shell.

Hope this helps. If you are still stuck Google 'BBC Bitesize' or 'Chemguide, Jim Clark', they are both really helpful.

(I may only be 13, but to the best of mine-and seemingly the internet's-knowledge, this is correct, but not pasted off some random website, it is used for GCSE and A'level Chemistry and would be useful to know)

Answer 3

By which group (or column) it's in. The single place digit refers to the number of electrons in the valence shell of the elements in that group, with the exception of helium (which has 2, it is in group 18 because it has a full valence shell).

This number of valence electrons is important in figuring out the number of bonds that element can make under normal conditions.

For groups with single digit places less than or equal to 4, it's simple:

#bonds = (#valence e-)

In group 1, each element has 1 valence electrons and makes 1 bond.

In group 2, each element has 2 valence electrons and makes 2 bonds.

In group 3, each element has 3 valence electrons and makes 3 bonds.

In group 4, each element has 4 valence electrons and makes 4 bonds.

And so on. Now also remember that it is the single digits place that matters so...

In group 13, each element has 3 valence electrons and makes 3 bonds.

In group 14, each element has 4 valence electrons and makes 4 bonds.

For groups with the single digits place greater than 4. use the simple equation below:

#bonds = 8-(#valence e-)

In group 15, each element has 5 valence electrons and makes 3 bonds.

In group 16, each element has 6 valence electrons and makes 2 bonds.

In group 17, each element has 7 valence electrons and makes 1 bond.

In group 18, each element has 8 valence electrons and makes 0 bonds.

Hope this helps.