Does Igniting Gunpowder Cause a Chemical Reaction?

According to what I was able to find in the Encyclopedia Britannica website, a chemical reaction can be defined as “a process in which one or more substances, the reactants, are converted to one or more different substances, the products.” In other words, it is a change from one thing to another like a solid into a gas or a liquid into a solid. A great example of a chemical reaction can be the change gunpowder undergoes once ignited. What starts off as a solid, becomes a gas once combusted. This type of chemical reaction is undeniably important in its use as a propellant for bullets. Without the chemical reaction that occurs creating hot, high-pressure gas in the bore of the firearm, the bullet would go nowhere.

The four types of bonds are different in how they interact with or share electrons. For example, covalent and polar bonds do share electrons but while covalent bonds share them evenly, polar bonds do not. Ionic bonds are different from covalent and polar bonds in the fact that they do not share electrons at all, and metallic bonds are usually selective in the since that this type of bond is attracted when you positively charge metal ions. All of these bonds are not equal in their strength either. Covalent bonds are the weakest, ionic bonds are the strongest and polar bonds are stronger than covalent but weaker than ionic bonds. In turn, metallic bonds are usually going to be some of the weakest compared to the three.

Resources

“Chemical Reaction.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, inc., 27 Dec. 2023, www.britannica.com/science/chemical-reaction.

“Askrose.Org Types of Bonds and Their Differences - Chemistry - Bonding and Molecular Structure: AskRose.” AskRose.Org, 20 July 2020, askrose.org/student-resources/science-resources/chemistry/bonding-and-molecular-structure/types-of-bonds-and-their-differences/#:~:text=The%20difference%20between%20bond%20types,don’t%20share%20at%20all.