Hydrogen Bond

Name:
Hydrogen Bond
Detailed information:
An attractive force, or bridge, occurring in polar compounds such as water in which a hydrogen atom of one molecule is attracted to two unshared electrons of another. The hydrogen atom is the positive end of one polar molecule and forms a linkage with the electronegative end of another such molecule. In the formula below, the hydrogen atom in the center is the “bridge.”

Hydrogen bonds are only one-tenth to one-thirteenth as strong as covalent bonds but they have pronounced effects on the properties of substances in which they occur, especially as regards melting point, boiling point, and crystalline structure. They are found in compounds containing such strongly electronegative atoms as nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine. They play an important part in the bonding of cellulosic compounds, e.g., in the paper industry, and occur also in many complex structures of biochemical importance, e.g., adenine-uracil linkage in DNA.