Atomic Structure - Study Notes

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Atomic

Structure
Updated as of OCT 2020

CHEMISTRY

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Atomic Structure

Atoms
 An atom is the smallest particle of every element.

 The word atom came from the Greek word Atomos which means indivisible.

 Atoms are made of Electron, Protons, and Neutrons. Proton and Neutron reside in
the nucleus of the atom and electrons orbit the nucleus.

 Atoms always have an equal number of protons and electrons and the number of
neutrons and protons is usually same as well.

 Protons and Neutrons are held together in the nucleus by a strong force called
Strong Nuclear force.

Discovery of Electrons
Dalton’s theory:

 The matter is composed of very small particles known as atoms.

 Atoms are indivisible (That cannot be divided) and cannot be destroyed through
chemical reactions.

 All atoms of an element have identical chemical properties and mass.

 Drawbacks: Various other scientist discovered that atoms were made of elec-
tron proton and neutron.

 In 1850s, Faraday began to study electrical discharge in partially evacuated tubes,


known as cathode ray discharge tubes.

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 A cathode ray tube is made of glass having two thin pieces of metal, called
electrodes, sealed in it.

 The electrical discharge through the gases could be observed only at very low
pressure and at very high voltage.

 The pressure of different gases can be adjusted by evacuation.

 When sufficient High voltage is applied on the electrodes, current starts flowing
through a stream of particles moving in the tube from the negative electrode
(cathode) to the positive electrode (anode).

 These stream of particles were called cathode rays or cathode ray particles.

The results of this experiment:

1. The cathode rays start from cathode and move towards the anode.

2. In the absence of electrical or magnetic field, these rays travel in straight lines.

3. In the presence of electrical or magnetic field, the behavior of cathode rays is similar
to that expected from negatively charged particles, suggesting that the cathode rays
consist of negatively charged particles, called electrons.

Discovery of Protons and Neutrons


 Electrical discharge carried out in the modified cathode ray tube led to the discovery
of particles carrying positive charge, also called Protons.

 Some of the positively charged particles carry a multiple of the fundamental unit of
electrical charge.

 The smallest and lightest positive ion was obtained from hydrogen and was called
proton.

 When electrically neutral particles having a mass slightly greater than that of the
protons was emitted. He named these particles as neutrons.

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Non-Fundamental Particles
 Particles other than electron, protons and neutrons are called non-fundamental
particles.

1. Positron: It is antiparticle of electron, it has positive charge and its


mass is equal to that of the mass of electron. It is represented by e+.

2. Antiproton: It is antiparticle of proton. It has negative charge and its


mass is equal to that of the mass of proton. It is represented by ‘p’.

3. Neutrino and Antineutrino: The existence of these particles was


explained during the emission of β-particles from radioactive nuclei. The rest
mass and charge of these particles is zero, but they have both energy and
momentum.

4. Pi-mesons: The existence of π mesons was predicted by Yukawa. Nuclear


forces are explained by the exchange of pi-mesons between the nucleons. Pi-
mesons are of three type, positive pi-mesons, negative pi-mesons, neutral pi-
mesons.

5. Quarks and Bosons: These are the elementary particles from which
other heavy sub-atomic particles such as electrons, protons and neutrons are
formed. Bosons are the particles for which number of rotations are whole
number.

Different Atomic models


J.J Thomson’s Model of Atom
 Thomson proposed a theory according to which he defined atoms to be similar to
that of a Christmas pudding.

 He stated that atoms consist of a positively charged sphere and electrons are
embedded into it.

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 He also said that negative and positive charges are equal in magnitude, so an atom
as a whole is electrically neutral.

Thomson's Atomic Model

 Drawbacks: It failed to explain how the positive charge holds on the electron inside
the atom. It also failed to explain the reasons of stability of an atom.

Rutherford’s Atomic Model


 Rutherford used α–particle scattering experiment on gold sheet.

 He observed that most of the α– particles passed through the gold foil without
deflecting.

 Some α–particles were deflected by small angles, and some were deflected by
nearly 180° .

 On the basis of this experiment Rutherford stated that there is a positively charged
spherical center in an atom called the nucleus, and nearly all the mass of an atom
(having radius 10-10m) is packed in the nucleus (having radius 10–15 m).

 The theory says that the size of the nucleus is very small as compared to the size of
the atom.

 He stated that electrons revolve around the nucleus in a well defined path called
“orbit”.

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Rutherford's Scattering Experiment

Deflected Particles from a Gold Sheet

 Drawbacks: It failed to explain about the stability of electrons in a circular

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Neil Bohr’s Theory


 Bohr utilized the concept of quantisation and put forward the following points in his
theory.

 The electrons revolve in their orbits without losing energy.

 An electron moves from lower to higher states by gaining the energy and moves
from higher energy states to lower energy states by losing energy.

 The lowest energy level of an electron is called the Ground state.

 The energy levels are represented by an integer known as the Quantam number.
These quantam numbers start from n=1, 2, 3, ….. and got assigned as K, L, M, N,
…. Shells.

Bohr's Model

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 Drawbacks: Bohr’s model was not able to define the effect of magnetic field and
electric field on the spectra of atoms.

 The Bohr atomic model made correct predictions for smaller sized atoms like hydro-
gen, but poor spectral predictions were obtained when larger atoms are considered.

Atomic Number and Mass Number


 The charge on the proton is equal but opposite to that of electron.

 The number of proton present in the nucleus of the atom is called atomic number
(Z).

 The positive charge of nucleus is because of protons but the mass of nucleus is due
to both protons and neutrons.

 Protons and neutrons are together called nucleons.

 The total number of nucleons is called mass number (A).

Isobars
 Isobars are the atoms with same mass number but different atomic number.
Example: 6C14 and 7N14.

 Isobars of Uranium is used in nuclear reactor.

 The isobar of cobalt is used in treatment of cancer, and the isobar of Iodine is used
in the treatment of goiter.

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Isobars

Isotopes
 Isotopes are the atoms with different mass number but similar atomic number.
Example: 1H1 (Protium), 1H2 (Deuterium), 1H3 (Tritium).

 Chemical properties of atoms are determined by the number of electrons, which are
determined by the number of protons in the nucleus.

 Number of neutrons present in the nucleus have a little effect on the chemical
properties of an element. Therefore, all the isotopes of a given element show similar
chemical behavior.

 Some isotopes are stable, but some can emit subatomic particles in order to reach a
more stable state, such isotopes are called Radioisotopes, and the process of
emitting particles by them is called decay.

 The unstable isotopes emit rays which are called radioactive rays. Alpha, Beta and
Gamma are the rays emitted by unstable isotopes.

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Isotopes of Hydrogen

Quantum Numbers
 The quantum numbers are the set of four numbers that give complete information
about

 The position of or energy

 Subshell

 Orientation

 Spinning (Direction of rotation in the orbital) of an electron

1. The Principle Quantum number (n):

 ‘n’ is a positive integer with value of n = 1,2,3.......

 It identifies the shell or orbit number of an electron, it also determines the size
and energy of the orbit.

 As the value of ‘n’ increases, energy of orbital increases.

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2. Angular Momentum Quantum Number (l):

 It is used to describe subshell or angular momentum of the revolving electron.

 If l = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4….. then subshell will be s, p, d, f, g….

 For principle quantum number n, l has values from 0 to (n-1) e.g if n=1 then
l=0 and if n=3 then l= 0, 1, 2, 3

3. Magnetic Quantum Number (m):

 It determines the orientation of orbitals in space or direction of an orbital in


the space of magnetic field.

 The value of ‘m’ depends upon the value of l, it varies from –l…….0……..+l.

Total value of m= (2l=1)

If l = 0 then m = 0

If l=1 then m = -1, 0, +1

If l=2 then m = -2, -1, 0, +1, +2

4. Spin Quantum number (s):

 It represents the spin of an electron in an orbital.

 Generally two types of spins are possible for an electron, these are clock-
wise and anti-clockwise.

 The value of s can be +1/2 or -1/2. The orbital cannot hold more than two

Structural features of an Atom


 Structural features of an atom are given below

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Shells and Subshells


 The orbitals or paths of different and definite energies in which the electrons revolve
called shells.

 The energy of innermost shell is lowest and of outermost shell is largest.

 Symbols K, L, M, N are used to represent various shells from lower to upper energy.

 Each orbit or shall consists of one or more subshells depending upon the three
dimensional graphic plot of electronic wave function and internal atomic
composition.

 Each shell is associated with one or more orbitals that are represented by the small
letters s, p, d and f.

Shell Total number of Electrons


K-shell 2
L-shell 8
M-shell 18
N-shell 32

Orbitals
 The three dimensional space, present around the nucleus of an atom, where
probability of finding an electron is maximum, is called orbit.

 Each orbital is associated with a fixed number of electrons. E.g. the maximum
number of electrons present in s, p, d, and f subshells are 2, 6, 10, and 14
respectively.

Electronic Configuration
 Distribution of Electron in Different orbits (Shells): It is an arrangement of electrons
in various shells, subshells and orbits of an atom.

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Bohr Burry Scheme


 The distribution of electrons into different orbits of an atom was suggested by Bohr
and Burry in 1921. According to them, the electrons enter in the orbit in accordance
with the following rules:

1. Maximum number of electrons in a shell is given by the formula 2n2.

2. The outmost shell can have a maximum of 8 electrons.

3. Electrons are filled in the shells stepwise manner i.e. from inner to outer.

Rules for Filling Electrons in the

Afbau Principle
 In the ground state of the atoms, the orbitals are filled in order of their increasing
energies, or electrons first occupy the lowest energy orbital available to them
and enter into higher energy orbitals only after the lower energy orbitals are filled.
For example, carbon has 6 electrons and its electronic configuration is 1s22s22p2.

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Order of Filling the Electrons

Pauli Exclusion Principle


 The number of electrons to be filled in various orbitals is restricted by the exclusion
principle.

 No two electrons in an atom can have the same set of four quantum numbers, in
other words “Only two electrons may exist in the same orbital and these
electrons must have opposite spin.

 The restriction imposed by Pauli’s exclusion principle on the number of electrons in


an orbital helps in calculating the capacity of electrons to be present in any subshell.

 The maximum number of electrons in the shell with principal quantum number n is
equal to 2n2.

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Hund’s Rule of Maximum Multiplicity


 This rule deals with the filling of electrons into the orbitals belonging to the same
subshell.

 This rule states that pairing of electrons in the orbitals belonging to the same
subshell (p, d or f) does not take place until each orbital belonging to that subshell
has got one electron each i.e., it is singly occupied.

 Since there are three p, five d and seven f orbitals, therefore, the pairing of electrons
will start in the p, d and f orbitals with the entry of 4th, 6th and 8th electron.

Valence and Core Electrons


 Electron present in the outermost orbit of the atom is called valence electron and the
electron present in innermost orbit of an atom is called core electron.

 The chemical properties of an element depends upon valency of element, and that is
calculated from the number of valence electrons.

Electronic configuration of the electrons

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 Exceptions:

1. Chromium (24): 1s22s22p63s23d54s1

2. Copper (29): 1s22s22p63s23p64s23d9

 These two are exception because a completely full or half full d sub-
level is more stable than a partially filled d sub-level, so an electron
from the 4s orbital is exited and rises to a 3d orbital. In these both
cases an electron moves from the 4s sublevel to produce a half full 3d
(Cr) or completely filled 3d (Cu).

Points to Remember
1. Protons and Neutrons together are called Nucleons.

2. Hydrogen is the only element, isotopes of which have different names.

3. Polonium has maximum number of isotopes.

4. Artificial isobars are obtained by the emission of β-particles from radioactive


elements.

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