Chapter 7: Chemical Bonding Section 7.3: The Covalent Bond Wednesday, October 1, 2014 1:55 PM Covalent bonds - attractive force resulting from the sharing of electrons between pairs of atoms ? Chemical Bonds and Energy ? Driving force between all bond formation is lowering overall energy (NOTE: attractive interactions lower potential energy) ? Typically in interactions between nonmetals! ? -point of minimum energy in a system = formation of covalent bond Bond energy - energy released when isolated atoms form a covalent bond Bond length - distance between the nuclei of bonded atoms ? Formation of a chemical bond always releases energy Bond strength is determined by the amount of energy released in the formation of that bond (more released energy means stronger bond) ?