What is the nature of the bond in sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate?

[chemstudent123]

I have to write a report on the bonds of the following element sodium doecylbenzene sulfonate. The problem is in the pic (see pic) the sodium doesn't have a bond to anything is this an ionic bond? Plz help I'm extremely confused

 

[Cesium]

Do you mean the compound sodium decylbenzene sulfonate or sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate? Either way, you'll have one ionic bound like you said, but there are other covalent bonds that you can explain.

 

[chemstudent123]

ok thanks so the sodium doesn't have an actaul physical bond to the rest of the structure (no stick attaching to the rest of the structure) because its an ionic bond right

 

[Gokul43201]

ok thanks so the sodium doesn't have an actaul physical bond to the rest of the structure (no stick attaching to the rest of the structure) because its an ionic bond right

An ionic bond is no less of an actual physical bond than a covalent bond. In fact, the only difference between what are called covalent and ionic bonds is in the polarity of the bond.

In the absence of a polar solvent, the Na+ ion does not float about, detached from the rest of the molecule - it is bonded at one of the three oxygen (red) atoms of the sulfonate group. In fact, if you look carefully, the picture shows a white stick on one of the oxygen atoms, so that's the "stick" that attaches it to the rest of the structure. Of course, there is no reason (other than for the sake of representation) to specifically choose one of the O-atoms over the other two.

 

[chemstudent123]

oh so that is an ionic bond, there is no need for a "stick" to be attached to the sodium