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Atomic Structure

Atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons located in the nucleus or orbiting it. The behavior of subatomic particles in an electric field depends on their charge. Atoms are mostly empty space, with a small but dense nucleus at the center containing protons and neutrons, and electrons in shells farther from the nucleus. Properties like mass number and atomic number are defined. Isotopes have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Mass spectrometry can determine isotope abundances. Atomic radius decreases across a period as nuclear charge increases.

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17 views5 pages

Atomic Structure

Atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons located in the nucleus or orbiting it. The behavior of subatomic particles in an electric field depends on their charge. Atoms are mostly empty space, with a small but dense nucleus at the center containing protons and neutrons, and electrons in shells farther from the nucleus. Properties like mass number and atomic number are defined. Isotopes have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Mass spectrometry can determine isotope abundances. Atomic radius decreases across a period as nuclear charge increases.

Uploaded by

Siya Chiniah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Atomic Structure

Atoms consist of Protons, Neutrons and Electrons. They are referred to as Subatomic particles.
Subatomic Particle Relative Charge Relative mass/ a.m.u

Protons (P) +1 1
Neutrons (n) 0 1
Electrons (e-) -1 1/1840

Behavior of a Beam of Subatomic Particles


The behavior of a beam of subatomic particles in an electric field is as follows:

• The Protons are positively charged and hence are deflected to -ve pole.
• The Neutrons have no charge and consequently are unaffected by the electric field, hence they are not
deflected.
• The Electrons are negatively charged and hence are deflected to +ve pole but due to their masses being
much less than that of protons, they are deflected by a greater angle.

Property Electron Proton Neutron


Electrical charge/coulombs -1.6X10-19 +1.6x10-19 0
Relative charge -1 +1 0
Mass/g 9.11X10-28 1.673X10-24 1.675X10-24
Structure of atoms

From what can be seen above and through various scientific experiments, what can be deduced about atoms is:

• An atom is electrically neutral; number of P+ = number of e-


• The particles that contribute to the atom's mass (protons and neutrons) are contained within a very
small central nucleus. The mass is concentrated in the nucleus.
• The electrons occupy the region around the nucleus. They are found in the space inside the atom but
outside the nucleus, which is almost the whole of the atom.
• All the atoms of a particular element contain the same number of protons. This also equals the number
of electrons within those atoms.
• The atoms of all elements except hydrogen also contain neutrons. These are in the nucleus along with
the protons. Almost the only effect they have on the properties of the atom is to increase its mass.

Atoms are mostly empty space surrounding a very small, dense nucleus that contains protons and neutrons;
electrons are found in shells in the empty space around the nucleus.

Some definitions:

• Nucleon number/ mass number/ atomic mass number


It is the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom. The relative mass (Ar) of an atom is
nearly the same as its nucleon number.

• Proton Number/ atomic number

It is the sum of the number of protons in an atom

• Ions

An ion is a charged atom where the number of electrons is different from the number of protons. The mass of an
ion is considered to be identical to that of an atom due to electrons having a very small mass.

• Isotopes (1H and 3H; 35Cl and 37Cl…)

Isotopes are atoms of the same element with the same proton number but different nucleon number. Hence
isotopes have different number of neutrons and different isotopic mass.
The mass spectrometer
The relative masses and the relative abundances of individual isotopes are easily measured in a mass
spectrometer. A mass spectrum is obtained which can be used to determine the relative abundances of
individual isotopes.

Mass spectrum of Krypton

Ar = ∑ (atomic mass units x percentage abundance)


100

In this example, this means [(78x0.3) +(80x2.3) +(82x11.6) +(83x11.5) +(84x56.9) +(86x17.4)] ÷ 100
= 83.891
= 83.9
Atomic radius
The atomic radius is the distance between the centre of the nucleus and the outermost electron shell (orbital).
The atomic radius will change both down the groups and across the periods.

Down the groups, the atomic radii increase because the number of shells indeed increase.

The size increase as the number of


shells increase.

Across the period, the number of electron shells stays the same but the number of proton increases. This causes
the force of attraction (electrostatic) between protons and electrons to be stronger due to greater effective
nuclear charge. Consequently, the pull between electrons and protons is stronger thereby bringing the shells
closer to the nucleus. The atomic radii decrease.

radius decreases
For visual comparison

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