The Problem of Monatomic Multicharged Ions and the Nature of the Chemical Bond in Inorganic Crystals

The review deals with the problem of the chemical bond in inorganic solids on the basis of the analysis of the experimental data. It is shown that thermochemical and crystal-chemical arguments can hardly be regarded as proof of the ionic theory, while data derived by modern methods for the direct estimate of effective charges show quite definitely that the bonds are covalent even in structures such as alkaline earth metal oxides and chalcogenides. The bibliography comprises 116 references.