Question about single, double, triple bonds...?

This question can be answered the movie cliche: Cyanide.

So this little bastard here with the Carbon double bonded to Nitrogen is a great example of it reactivity and stability.

The Cyanide used to kill is Potassium Cyanide. Once ingested, it turns to Hydrogen cyanide (From the reaction with stomach acid) and seeps into your blood stream from your stomach. This now exists in your cells and blocks cellular respiration. Your cells take in the cyanide, bond with them, die, release the cyanide, and now the cyanides go after more cells to block their cellular respiration. (that was very very basic explanation).

Here, the cyanide reacted with almost everything but the triple bond never broke. It had many other ions attached to it but not once did the triple bond let go.

Even when you detoxify Cyanide, it makes the ion: Cyanate (OCN) which still retains the triple bond.

It is very hard to break that triple bond there, but easy to bond WITH the triple bond. Making it reactive :)

And sigma bonds are evident in diatomic molecules and may ions. Don't confuse them with common single bonds. Take nitrogen gas: N-N. That is one of the strongest bonds known to man. So yes, it will take a lot more energy to break that individual bond. Same thing with the hydroxl group. Try separating the hydroxyl- group from anything. It will take a powerful reduction agent to take the H away from the O/

The dots around each atom signify its valence electrons. In covalent molecules, these are 'shared' between the atoms which might be joined together. Asingle bond is formed when one electron from each atom is shared. A double bond involves the sharing of two electrons from every atom. A triple bond entails the sharing of three electrons from each atom. This 'sharing' takes situation so that each and every atom can acquire a share in a stable electron constitution (ie a stuffed outer vigor level). Eg. In a molecule of CO2, C has four valence electrons every O has 6 valence electrons The important C atom shares TWO of its valence electrons with each and every of the O atoms (ie. A double bond to each and every of them). The C then has a share in eight valence electrons and every O has a share in eight valence electrons So, the atoms have won balance by forming the compound O=C=O within the nitrate ion (NO3-), the relevant nitrogen, with 5 valence electrons, types double bonds to two of the oxygen atoms and a single bond to the 1/3 oxygen. This final oxygen has additionally been given 1 electron (by using, eg. A Na atom which would then have come to be a Na+ ion).