Gcse why is diamond hard

Organic compounds are substances that contain carbon. There is a vast array of natural and synthetic organic compounds because of the ability of carbon to form four covalent bonds. Carbon can also form giant covalent structures, including diamond and graphite.

Structure and bonding. On the Mohs Hardness Scale, diamonds rank at 10, which is the hardest in the scale. World View. Why Is a Diamond so Hard? More From Reference. Graphite is soft because it has weak inter molecular forces between its layers. Diamond is hard due to its giant covalent lattice and it has many strong covalent bonds.

Diamond is a form of carbon in which each carbon atom is joined to four other carbon atoms, forming a giant covalent structure. These atoms are often all the same - so the elements Silicon and Carbon in the allotropes Diamond and Graphite are Giant Covalent structures.

Crystal Structure. The crystal structure of a diamond is a face-centered cubic or FCC lattice. Each carbon atom joins four other carbon atoms in regular tetrahedrons triangular prisms. Diamond is made of covalently bonded carbon atoms C and has no oxygen. The C-C bond is much stronger and the bond length is much shorter 1. It is the molecular structure of diamonds that makes them so hard. Diamonds are made of carbon atoms linked together in a lattice structure. Each carbon atom shares electrons with four other carbon atoms, forming a tetrahedral unit.

This tetrahedral bonding of five carbon atoms forms an incredibly strong molecule. General Properties of Covalent Compounds Covalent compounds usually have low melting points. An exception to this include molecules of silica and diamonds that have a high melting point.

These compounds have low boiling points. This can be attributed to their weak force of attraction between the various bonded atoms. Covalent Lattice - This is where you have atoms covalently bonding everywhere in an almost infinite array to form a solid network or lattice.

A common example is diamond where each carbon atoms attaches itself to four other carbon atoms and eac of those four carbon atoms attach to another four carbon atoms and so on.

Why does diamond have a high melting point GCSE? Category: science chemistry. Diamond is a form of carbon in which each carbon atom is joined to four other carbon atoms, forming a giant covalent structure. As a result, diamond is very hard and has a high melting point.