What types of elements react when forming ionic bonds?
Another person wrote: “Ionic bonds can be formed when a metal reacts with a nonmetal. Any metal or non-mental can be used in the reaction.” This, by the way, is completely wrong, and a common misconception. In fact, there are relatively few metal-nonmetal compounds that have high ionic character. A great many metal-nonmetal binary compounds have bonds which are predominately covalent. All it takes is a calculator and a table of electronegativities, and you can see for yourself. A somewhat arbitrary electronegativity difference that indicates a high ionic character is 2.0. Even the most “ionic” of bonds (Cs-F) is 8 percent covalent. Bonding is not “either ionic or covalent”. Bonds lie along a continuum and can be classified in terms of the percent ionic character. The bonds which are highest in ionic character will be between the alkali metals and N, O, F, Cl and Br. Those are the ones which will give electronegativity differences of around 2 or greater.
