For a ceramic compound, what are the two characteristics of the component ions that determine the crystal structure?

The two characteristics of component ions that determine the crystal structure of a ceramic compound are:

1) The magnitude of electrical charge on each ion.

2) The relative sizes of both cations and anions.

Explanation:

Most ceramics normally contain both metallic and nonmetallic elements with ionic or covalent bonds. Thus, the structure of the metallic atoms, structure of the non-metallic atoms, and also the balance of charges produced by the valence electrons must be considered.

These ionic and covalent bonds i talked about earlier are the strong primary bonds that hold the atoms together and form the ceramic material. These chemical bonds are of two types:

i) they could either be ionic in character, meaning they involve a transfer of bonding electrons from electropositive atoms (cations) to electronegative atoms (anions),

ii) or they could be covalent in character, which involves orbital sharing of electrons between the constituent atoms or ions.

Thus, Covalent bonds are generally directional in nature, often dictating the types of crystal structure possible. Whereas, Ionic bonds, on the other hand, are entirely nondirectional. This nondirectional nature allows for hard-sphere packing arrangements of the ions into a variety of crystal structures.

So, we can deduce that;

The two characteristics of component ions that determine the crystal structure of a ceramic compound are:

1) The magnitude of electrical charge on each ion.

2) The relative sizes of both cations and anions.