Which of the following, I or I-, will have a negative electron
affinity?

Question

Accepted Answer

hey everyone in this example, we're told that between chlorine and the chloride an ion which do we expect to have a more positive electron affinity. We should recall that electron affinity is the ability of an atom to gain electrons or an electron. We should recognize that the cl minus or chloride an ion means that we gain one electron to our neutral chlorine atom. And this would correspond to the configuration for argon. We would recognize that Argon is located in Group eight a. And is considered a noble gas because it's in the noble gas group. And so because we would recognize that our chloride an ion has a noble gas configuration, it's going to be most stable in this configuration. So it's most stable with the following configuration where we have neon in brackets because it's the noble gas that comes before chlorine on the product table with a three S 23 P six where we would land on argon as our noble gas here for its configuration. So if we know that the chloride an ion is most stable with this noble gas configuration, which is the same configuration, Argon would have. We can conclude that if we were to add another electron to this configuration, then chloride would no longer have this noble gas configuration in which its most stable in And in order for our chloride an ion to gain another electron so that it has a different configuration, we would need a force of energy to allow this to happen. So we would need increased energy or more positive energy needed to force an extra electron to be added to our chloride an ion. And so therefore this would correspond to a higher electron affinity. And so we would conclude that this is our final answer here. This explanation that chlorine or the chloride an ion rather, is the more is the atom with the more positive electron affinity. And so this is our final answer to complete this example. So I hope that everything I explained was clear. If you have any questions, please leave them down below and I will see everyone in the next practice video.

Which of the following, I or I-, will have a negative electron affinity?

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Electron Affinity

Iodine and Iodide Ion

Trends in Electron Affinity