I want to know if you forced two cations together (maybe by heating it up in a plasma or something) would they bond and share atoms like in a covalent bond? What’s more, instead of taking just the first valence electron from each cation, could you take half of the electrons from each atom and force them to bond so that the two atoms have a bond that’s 4 or 5 times stronger than it would be if you only took 1 electron?
1 Answer
The mercury(I) ion is an exact example- it exists as a dimer, single-bonded using each atom's (relativistically stabilised) 6s orbital.