Unit 2 - Atomic Structure

Terms

● Element: a substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances by a

chemical reaction.
● Compound: a substance made by chemically combining two or more elements. It
has different properties from its constituent elements.
● Mass number(A): the number of protons plus the number of neutrons in an atom.
Give the total number of nucleons, and often referred to as nucleon number.
● Isotopes: atoms of the same element with different mass numbers.
● Ions: when an atom loses or gains an electron, an ion is formed. Positive ions are
known as cations and negative ions are known as anions.
● Relative atomic mass(Ar): average mass of an atom of an element, taking into account
all the isotopes and their relative abundance, compared to one atom of carbon-12.
● Wavelength(λ): the distance between two successive crests or troughs.
○ Measured in meters(m).
● Frequency(ν): the number of waves produced in one second.
○ Measured in Hertz(Hz).
● Ground state: when an electron is in its lowest energy level.
● Absorption spectrum: an electron absorbs light photons and jumps to an excited
state of higher energy.
○ This spectrum would be black lines, representing absorbed colors, on a coloured
background.
● Emission spectrum: an electron emits light photons as it jumps down to a state of
lower energy.
○ This spectrum would consist of coloured lines, representing emitted colors, on a
black background.
● Ionization energy: the energy needed to remove an electron from the ground state of
each atom in a mole of gaseous atoms, ions, or molecules.

Important Formulae

● c(speed of light) = λ (wavelength in m) x ν(frequency in Hz)

● E(energy in joules) = h(planck’s constant) x v(frequency in Hz)
● E(energy in joules) = h(planck's constant) x (c(speed of light)/λ(wavelength in m))
○ Energy in joules is directly proportional to frequency in Hz and 1/v
● ∆Eelectron= ∆Ephoton
○ The energy change when an electron drops a level is equal to the energy of the
photon emitted due to the drop.
○ Ephoton = hv = directly proportional to v
○ The energy of the photon is proportional to the frequency of light emitted.
High energy photons emit UV or violet light(high frequency) and low energy
photons emit IR or red light(low frequency)
Orbital Configurations
● The number of subshells at the nth energy level: n
● The number of orbitals at the nth energy level: n2
● The number of electrons at the nth energy level: 2n2

Isotopes
● All isotopes of the same element have the same chemical properties, but different
physical properties.

Mass Spectrum:
● The results of the analysis of an element’s isotopes by a mass spectrometer are
presented in the form of a mass spectrum.
● It is a bar graph where mass/charge is plotted on the x axis and % abundance is plotted
on the y axis.

Specta

Emission Spectrum:
● It is produced by excited atoms and ions as they fall back to a lower energy level.
● Line emission spectrum is characteristic to the element. Therefore, different elements
have different line spectra, and can be used to identify unknown elements.
● Emission spectra are not continuous, but consist of separate lines.
● These lines converge towards the higher energy end of the spectrum.
 ● The amount of light absorbed at a particular frequency depends on the identity and
concentration of the atoms present. Atomic absorption spectroscopy is used to measure
the concentration of metallic elements.

Atomic Models

Bohr’s Atomic Model: the Planetary Model

- Electrons have a fixed path (orbit)

- Each orbit has its own energy
- When electrons drop labels they
release energy in quantised amounts,
making the emission spectrum
discontinuous. Therefore, the
emission spectrum is vital evidence
for quantisation, because if energy
were not quantised, the emission
spectrum would be continuous.

Wave-Particle Duality describes the difference between the particle and wave nature of EM
radiation.
 Electronic Configuration
It is a more detailed model of the atom describing the division of the main energy level into
s,p,d, and f sublevels of successively higher energies.
1s<2s<2p<3s<3p<4s<3d<4p<5s
Orbitals ranked in ascending order of their energy:
s<p<d<f
 Orbital Configurations

s orbitals
- Spherical in shape.
- Have only 1 shape.
- Hold maximum 2 electrons with
opposite spins.
- Lowest energy orbital.

p orbitals
- Dumbbell shaped.
- Have 3 orbital shapes, which hold 2
electrons each, for a total of 6
electrons. The orientations are: px,
py, pz.
- Higher in energy than s.

d orbitals
- Double dumbbell shaped.
- Has 5 orbital shapes, which hold 2
electrons each, for a total of 10
electrons.
- Higher in energy than p.

f orbitals
- Has 7 possible shapes, for a total of
14 electrons.
- Highest in energy, out of the 4.
Aufbau Principle: When electrons fill up the orbitals, the orbitals with the lowest energy level
get filled up with electrons first. The order is: 1s<2s<2p<3s<3p<4s<3d<4p<5s

Hund’s Rule:
- In orbitals of the same energy level, electron pairing will not take place until each orbital
has got 1 electron each in parallel spin.
- This is mainly because electrons that are negatively charged will repel each other and
create distance between each other and try to remain unpaired.
- This means that when drawing electron configurations, you must fill each orbital with an
electron before pairing them up.

Patterns in successive ionization energies give evidence for shells and subshells.