Chapter 2: Atomic structure

2.1 Atoms and elements

Every substance around us is made up of atoms. They are the small
particles from which all the material world is built (chek Figure 2.2
page 30).
Structrure of the atom
Subatomic particles: very small particles (protons, neutrons and electrons) from
which all atoms are made.
Electron: a subatomic particle with negligible mass and a relative charge of -1.
electrons are present in all atoms; located in the shells (energy levels) outside the
nucleus.
Proton: a subatomic particle with a relative atomic mass of 1 and a charge of +1
found in the nucleus of all atoms.
Neutron: an uncharged subatomic particle present in the nucleus of atoms. A
neutron has a mass of 1 relative to a proton.
Nucleus: the central region of an atom that is made up of the protons and neutrons
of the atom; the electrons orbit around the nucleus in different ‘shells’ or ‘energy
levels’. (chek Figure 2.4 page 33).
Characteristics of protons, neutrons and electrons
The three subatomic particles are found in distinct regions of the atom. They are
held within the atom by an electrostatic force of attraction.

The simplest atom is the hydrogen atom, which has one proton in its nucleus. It is
the only atom that has no neutrons; it consists of one proton and one electron.

The key characteristics of these three subatomic particles are listed in Table 2.1.
Proton (atomic) number and mass (nucleon) number
Proton number (or atomic number) (Z): the number of protons in the
nucleus of an atom.

Mass number (or nucleon number) (A): the total number of protons
and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.
 2.2 Isotopes
Measuring the mass of atoms

Because an atom is verry small and tiny particle, we cannot measure its mass
using a balance.

The masses of all atoms are compared to the mass of a carbon atom using a mass
spectrometer. This gives a seies of values of the relative atomic mass (Ar) for the
different elements.

Mass spectrometer: an instrument in which atoms or molecules are ionised and

then accelerated; the ions are then separated according to their mass.

Relative atomic mass (Ar): the average mass of naturally occurring atoms of an
element on a scale where the carbon-12 atom has a mass of exactely 12 units.
Pure samples of many elements (e.g. carbon, hydrogen and chlorine) are found to contain
atoms that have different masses.

The different masses observed are the result of the presence of different numbers of
neutrons in the nucleus of atoms of the same element.

When this occurs, the atoms of the same element are called isotopes.

Isotopes: atoms of the same element that have the same proton number but a different
nucleon number; they have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus.
Characteristics of isotopes
The difference between isotopes of the same element is
just the number of neutrons in the atoms. The atoms have
the same number of protons and electrons.

The isotopes are referred to using their mass number. For

example, the isotopes of carbon are carbon-12, carbon-13
and carbon-14. Table 2.4 gives the details of the isotopes of
several elements.
Calculating relative atomic mass

Chlorine (Cl) has two isotopes, chlorine-35 and chlorine-37, in an

approximate ratio of 3:1 (or 75.0% : 25.0%).
 2.3 Electronic configuration of elements
Electrons in shells
The electrons in atoms are arranged in different shells (or energy levels) that are at different
distances from the nucleus of the atom.

Each shell (or energy level) has amaximum number of electrons that it can contain and the
electrons fill the shells closest to the nucleus first.

The first shell can hold only two electrons.

The second shell and subsequent shells can hold eight electrons to give a stable arrangement
of electrons.

A simplified version of Bohr’s atomic theory of the arrangement of electrons is shown in

Figure 2.13.
The number and arrangement of the electrons in the atoms of the first 20 elements in the
periodic table are shown in Table 2.6.
 Electronic configuration and the periodic table
The electronic configuration of an element determines the group number and the period
number of that element in the periodic table.
The Figure 2.16 shows the relationship between an element’s position in the periodic table
and the electronic configuration of its atoms.
 Group and period number
The number of outer electrons in an atom is the same as the group number for the
element in the periodic table.

The number of occupied electron shells in an atom is the same as the period
number of the element in the periodic table.

Elements in the same group have the same number of outer electrons.

For the elements in Groups I to VII, the number of the group is the number of
electrons in the outer shell.
The noble gas electronic configuration