What are The Structures of Ionic Solids?
Ionic solids are stable, high melting substances which are held together by the strong electrostatic forces that exist between the opposite charged ions. On dissolving, they dissociate into ions and moves freely into solution.
The structures of most binary ionic solids are explained by the closest packing of sphere. Mostly the larger ions are the anions and they are packed in the closest packing arrangement and the smaller ions (generally cations) fit into the holes. These holes can be trigonal, tetrahedral or octahedral. The packing is done in such a way that maximizes the electrostatic attractions between the opposite charged ions and minimizes the repulsions among the ions with like charges. An example of ionic solid is NaCl.
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