The properties of glass lie within the bonding structure of silicon. Silicon cannot form strong ð bonds with oxygen by using its valency 3p orbitals. This is because of the large nuclear radius of the silicon atom and its orbitals which results in a less effective overlap with the smaller oxygen orbitals. The silicon atoms then form four single bonds to satisfy the octet rule. Therefore, instead of forming a SiO2 covalent molecule, it will form …showed first 75 words of 560 total…

…showed last 75 words of 560 total…directions. This results in glass being very hard, but very brittle. This hardness results because the atoms are so strongly bound to each other. These strong bonds imply that glass is not ductile or malleable and that the bonds break as the lattice is distorted. Also resulting from the atoms being covalently bound is that the electrons in the network are localised. Thus, glass does not conduct electricity efficiently enough to be classified as conductive.