Which has the strongest Intramolecular attractive forces?

Question

Metallic, Ionic and Covalent bond.

In High School Chemistry, most text books only describe the differences between them.

I have seen many sources online, there are a mix of opinions on ranking the strongest to the weakest attractive forces.

In general, for High School material, I'm wondering which of them has the strongest and weakest intramolecular forces?

Answer 1

I suspect you will not get a definitive answer to this question, mainly because there is none. This is like comparing apples and oranges. Why? Because there isn't just one type of covalent bond, and there isn't just one type of ionic bond, etc. Triple bonds are stronger than double bonds which are stronger than single bonds, and bond energies between C-H and C-O and N-H etc are all different. Similarly, with ionic bonds, there are different "strengths" of ionic bonds. This depends on the atonic size of the ions as well as the charge on the ions (see Coulombs Law).

So, in summary, it isn't easy to compare the different types of intramolecular forces because they vary so much. I hope this makes sense.