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Isotopes

Essential Question: How do


atoms of the same element differ?
What is an Isotope?
• Isotopes are atoms of the same element that
have the same number of protons but a different
number of neutrons.

• All elements consist of naturally occurring


isotopes and artificially produced isotopes
How are isotopes of an element
similar? How are they different?
The isotopes of an element have:
• Identical Chemical Properties (this is because they have
the same numbers of protons and electrons and
subatomic particles are responsible for chemical
behavior)

• Different Physical Properties (different mass and


different number of neutrons)
How do we represent specific isotopes?
• Nuclear symbols are used to represent specific
isotopes
• To write a nuclear symbol:
• 1.) the symbol of the element is written first
• 2.) the mass number is written as a
superscript to the left of the symbol
• 3.) the atomic number is written as a
subscript to the left. Study the illustration below

mass# 7
atomic# X 3 Li

Li-7 isotope
Learning Check
• Given a nuclear symbol, what does the top
left number represent?
– What does the bottom left number represent?
Can we write isotopes in a different way?

• You can also use the mass number and the


name of the element to designate the atom or
isotope
– This is called hyphen notation
• For example, two isotopes of carbon are carbon-12 and
carbon-13
– The nuclear symbols for these two isotopes would be:

12
6 C 13
6 C
Learning Check
• What does the number after the hyphen
represent?
What do the numbers used when
writing isotopes represent?
• The mass number
• total number of protons and neutrons in a
specific nucleus of an atom.

• The atomic number


• always refers to the total number of
protons in an atom.
How do I figure out the number of
neutrons when writing isotopes?
• To determine the number of neutrons in a
specific isotope
– subtract the atomic number from the mass number
• See the formula below

Mass Number (neutrons + protons)


Atomic Number (number of protons)
(number of neutrons)
Learning Check
• Boron consists of two isotopes, B-10 and B-11
1.) Determine the number of neutrons in each of the
isotopes

a.) B-10: 10 – 5 = 5 neutrons


b.) B-11: 11 – 5 = 6 neutrons

2.) Using the periodic table, write the nuclear symbol


for each isotope given in hyphen notation

10 11
5 B 5 B
What does the atomic weight of an element
depend on?
• To identify isotopes the mass number is placed after
the element’s name
– Ex: chlorine-35 potassium-37

• The atomic weight of an element depends on the


abundance of its isotopes.
– If you know the mass of the isotopes and the percent (fractional)
abundance of the isotopes, you can calculate the element's
atomic weight.
How do I calculate the atomic mass of an element based
on percent natural abundance and isotopic masses?

• Example: Chlorine has 2 naturally occurring isotopes


Mass # Mass Percent Abundance
35 34.968852 75.77
37 36.965303 24.23

• To calculate the average atomic weight:


– add the mass of each isotope multiplied by its percent abundance

• This is the solution for chlorine:


(34.968852) * (0.7577) + (36.965303) * (0.2423) = 35.45 amu
Learning Check
Nuclear Complete based on the
Symbol following information:
29 protons, mass 65

Barium - 138

17 protons, mass 36

Tin - 120

16 protons, mass 30

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