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Atoms will gain or lose electrons depending on which action takes the least energy. For example, a sodium atom, Na, has a single electron in its valence shell, surrounding 2 stable, filled inner shells of 2 and 8 electrons. Since these filled shells are very stable, a sodium atom tends to lose its extra electron and attain this stable ...
One curiosity is why alpha particles, helium nuclei, should be preferentially emitted as opposed to other particles like a single proton or neutron or other atomic nuclei. [note 1] Part of the reason is the high binding energy of the alpha particle, which means that its mass is less than the sum of the masses of two free protons and two free ...
Radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms. According to quantum theory, it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay, regardless of how long the atom has existed. [2] [3] [4] However, for a significant number of identical atoms, the overall decay rate can be expressed as a decay constant or as a half-life.
The trend in the ionization energy of atoms is often used to demonstrate the periodic behavior of atoms with respect to the atomic number, as summarized by ordering atoms in Mendeleev's table. This is a valuable tool for establishing and understanding the ordering of electrons in atomic orbitals without going into the details of wave functions ...
The two types of beta decay are known as beta minus and beta plus.In beta minus (β −) decay, a neutron is converted to a proton, and the process creates an electron and an electron antineutrino; while in beta plus (β +) decay, a proton is converted to a neutron and the process creates a positron and an electron neutrino. β + decay is also known as positron emission.
A key step is drawing the Lewis structure of the molecule (neutral, cationic, anionic): Atom symbols are arranged so that pairs of atoms can be joined by single two-electron bonds as in the molecule (a sort of "skeletal" structure), and the remaining valence electrons are distributed such that sp atoms obtain an octet (duet for hydrogen) with a ...
Atoms that lose electrons make positively charged ions (called cations). This transfer of electrons is known as electrovalence in contrast to covalence . In the simplest case, the cation is a metal atom and the anion is a nonmetal atom, but these ions can be more complex, e.g. molecular ions like NH +
For example, a transfer of a single electron between atoms is a useful approximation for bonds that form between atoms with one-electron more than a filled shell, and others that are one-electron short of a full shell, such as occurs in the compound sodium chloride and other chemical ionic salts. Many elements display multiple valences, or ...