BOND TYPES

1.

PIA SORENSEN: So in addition to the basic molecules of cooking, there's 2. also a few basic ways that the molecules of cooking can interact with 3. each other. 4. Many of you have probably heard of these before, but here's a recap. 5. So covalent bonds are very, very strong bonds, and these are the bonds 6. that hold molecules together. 7. So in a fat molecule, for example, the bond between the carbons, those are 8. covalent bonds. 9. And the bonds between the carbon and the hydrogen, those 10. are covalent bonds. 11. And since these bonds are strong, it usually takes a lot of 12. energy to break them. 13. And so they usually don't break until we apply a lot of heat, which we 14. sometimes do in cooking, 15. There second-strongest bond is an electrostatic bond, and this is what 16. keeps two ions together. 17. So for example, the positive sodium ion in salt and the negative chloride 18. ion in salt, these are held together by an electrostatic bond. 19. And this is also a fairly strong bond, relatively speaking. 20. If we're starting to think of bonds between molecules, there are two kinds 21. of bonds in general that we're interested in. 22. And one of them is also a strong bond if you're thinking on the 23. intermolecular level, and this is the hydrogen bond.

24. So this is the bond that is keeping the individual water molecules 25. together in, say, a glass of water. 26. So a water molecule is one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. 27. And when these interact with other water molecules, the hydrogen ion is 28. going to interact with the oxygen ion, and this is a very strong bond that is 29. also giving water a lot of its very special properties. 30. And this bond is going to show up again and again in this course. 31. So what's making the hydrogen bond so strong is that there is actually a 32. difference in polarity between the oxygen and hydrogen. 33. And with a difference in polarity, I mean that the oxygen is going to be 34. slightly negative in charge, because it has a property that pulls electrons 35. towards it. 36. Whereas the hydrogen is going to be slightly positively charged, just 37. slightly, and this is because the oxygen is pulling away the 38. hydrogens from it. 39. And so when there's not this strong difference in polarity between two 40. molecules, then we have what's called Van der Waals bonds, and this is what 41. occurs between molecules when there is not a strong difference, say, between 42. an oxygen and a hydrogen. 43. So for example, when the two carbon chains on a fat molecule interact with 44. other carbon chains, there is going to be Van der Waals interactions that 45. sort of them together. 46. And this is the weakest bond, but this is often broken when we boil things or 47. when we do other, more subtle things to food. 48.