Dative Bonds

In the formation of simple covalent compounds each atom donate one electron in order to form a bond. This is not always the case, and a dative bond, sometimes called a coordinate bond, can be formed when two electrons shared between two atoms come from the same atom.

This happens when an electron rich compound, meaning that this compound has a lone pair of electrons such as NHand an electron deficient compound such as AlCl3. When drawing such electronic structures a dative bond would be depicted as having two crosses or two dots on the same bond.



Dative covalent bond


Dative covalent bond 2