Is Mercury (ii) Chloride a covalent bond or ionic?
There are no "pure" (100%) ionic bonds. The electronegativity of Hg is about 2 and that of Cl is about 3 for a difference of about 1 which makes it about 50% or so ionic/covalent. I think most would classify HgCl2 as ionic since clearly Hg is a metal and chlorine is a non-metal.
It is actually covalent due to the properties of mercury.
ionic
An ionic compound
To determine whether Mercury (II) Chloride (HgCl2) has a covalent or ionic bond, we need to consider the electronegativity difference between the elements involved.
Mercury (Hg) is a transition metal, and Chlorine (Cl) is a nonmetal. Transition metals typically form complex ions and can have variable charges, whereas nonmetals typically gain electrons to achieve a stable electron configuration.
In HgCl2, Mercury has a +2 charge, and each Chlorine atom has a -1 charge. This indicates that electrons are transferred from Mercury to Chlorine, suggesting an ionic bond.
Ionic bonds form when there is a significant electronegativity difference between the atoms, typically greater than 1.7 on the Pauling scale.
In the case of HgCl2, the electronegativity difference is above 1.7, thus indicating it has an ionic bond.