Is a metallic bond the only type of chemical bonding a metal can exhibit?
1 Answer
No. Metallic bonds are formed in bulk metals like iron or copper, in which the orbitals of many metal atoms overlap each other to form highly delocalized orbitals. The atoms are essentially bound together by a 'sea' of shared electrons.
Another common type of bonding is covalent coordinate bonding, in which a central metal atom is bound to 4-6 ligands. An example is nickel tetracarbonyl,
Metals can also form covalent bonds to first-row atoms like carbon and oxygen. Examples are iron oxide,