b. How much energy will the bond's surroundings gain or lose when the bond is broken?

When a chemical bond is broken, energy is required to overcome the attractive forces holding the atoms together. This energy is absorbed from the surroundings, resulting in the surroundings losing energy. The amount of energy needed to break a specific bond is known as the bond dissociation energy. For example, breaking a covalent bond might require several hundred kilojoules per mole, which means the surroundings will cool down slightly as they provide this energy. Additionally, when the bond is broken, the process can lead to the release of energy in other forms when the atoms rearrange and form new bonds. If this new bond formation releases more energy than was consumed in breaking the initial bond, the net energy change can result in a gain for the surroundings. This balance can often result in exciting reactions, like explosions or combustion, where rapid changes in energy transform the environment dramatically!