Skip to main content
Ch.7 - Periodic Properties of the Elements

Chapter 7, Problem 30

Some ions do not have a corresponding neutral atom that has the same electron configuration. For each of the following ions, identify the neutral atom that has the same number of electrons and determine if this atom has the same electron configuration. (a) CI, (b) Sc3+, (c) Fe2+, (d) Zn2+, (e) Sn4+.

Verified Solution
Video duration:
3m
This video solution was recommended by our tutors as helpful for the problem above.
1234
views
Was this helpful?

Video transcript

Hey everyone in this example we need to determine the neutral atom that is so electronic with the boron three minus an ion. So we want to go ahead and recall that. Our definition of ISil electronics is an adam or ion with the same, I'm sorry. That should say same number of electrons and that means that they are so electronic with one another. So we should look at a neutral atom of boron and recognize that we would find that in group three a across period two of our periodic tables with the atomic number five. And we want to recall that atomic number in a neutral atom only is going to equal our number of protons. Which is also going to equal our number of electrons only in neutral atoms. And so recalling this fact, we can say that boron should therefore have five electrons and five protons due to its atomic number equaling five. However, in this question we are given boron with a three minus charge and we should recall that a negative charge corresponds to the loss of electrons. Or sorry, the gain of electrons and we would recall that a positive charge corresponds to the loss of electrons was what I had originally meant. And so based on this fact, we would notice that we do have a negative charge here corresponding to us gaining that amount of electrons. And so because we have the b three minus an ion, we would therefore gain three electrons to neutral boron. And so that means that we would now have a total of five electrons from a neutral Bronn plus three more electrons, giving us a total of eight electrons total on our bo ride an ion. And so now we want to find a neutral atom that does have eight electrons. And so we want to find atomic number eight on on the periodic table. And we would see that that corresponds to the atom oxygen, which therefore means that we have eight protons, eight electrons and eight as its atomic number as given in the periodic table. And so therefore oxygen is so electronic neutral oxygen specifically is isil electronics with the B three minus an ion. And this will be our final answer to complete this example. So I hope that everything I ran through is clear. But if you have any questions, please leave them down below and I will see everyone in the next practice video.