Molecular Model - Models Based On Ball-and-stick

Models Based On Ball-and-stick

The concept of the chemical bond as a direct link between atoms can be modelled by linking balls (atoms) with sticks/rods (bonds). This has been extremely popular and is still widely used today. Initially atoms were made of spherical wooden balls with specially drilled holes for rods. Thus carbon can be represented as a sphere with four holes at the tetrahedral angles cos−1(-1/3) ≈ 109.47° .

A problem with rigid bonds and holes is that systems with arbitrary angles could not be built. This can be overcome with flexible bonds, originally helical springs but now usually plastic. This also allows double and triple bonds to be approximated by multiple single bonds (Fig. 3).

Figure 3 represents a ball-and-stick model of proline. The balls have colours: black represents carbon (C); red, oxygen (O); blue, nitrogen (N); and white, hydrogen (H). Each ball is drilled with as many holes as its conventional valence (C: 4; N: 3; O: 2; H: 1) directed towards the vertices of a tetrahedron. Single bonds are represented by (fairly) rigid grey rods. Double and triple bonds use two longer flexible bonds which restrict rotation and support conventional cis/trans stereochemistry.

However, most molecules require holes at other angles and specialist companies manufacture kits and bespoke models. Besides tetrahedral, trigonal and octahedral holes, there were all-purpose balls with 24 holes. These models allowed rotation about the single rod bonds, which could be both an advantage (showing molecular flexibility) and a disadvantage (models are floppy). The approximate scale was 5 cm per ångström (0.5 m/nm or 500,000,000:1), but was not consistent over all elements.

Arnold Beevers in Edinburgh created small models using PMMA balls and stainless steel rods. By using individually drilled balls with precise bond angles and bond lengths in these models, large crystal structures to be accurately created, but with light and rigid form. Figure 4 shows a unit cell of ruby in this style.