Hi everyone!
I had a question regarding valence electrons and outer electrons. Are these considered the same thing? I went to a step-up session during the week, and one of the questions asked to define the core electrons, outer electrons, and valence electrons for different elements, and for some elements the valence electrons and outer electrons had different values. I was a little confused about this, and I was wondering if you guys could explain this to me?
Thank you so much!
Valence Electrons vs. Outer Electrons
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Re: Valence Electrons vs. Outer Electrons
Hi Stella, I believe there is a difference when it's outer shell electron vs. valence electrons. Outer shell electrons refer to all the electrons in the outermost shell of that atom, so for example, copper would have 2+6+10=18 outer shell electrons. However, valence electrons refer to the electrons that are able to take part in bonding, which for copper will be the 10 electrons in the d orbital. Hope that answers your question and please correct me if I'm wrong!
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Re: Valence Electrons vs. Outer Electrons
Jessie Hsu 2A wrote:Hi Stella, I believe there is a difference when it's outer shell electron vs. valence electrons. Outer shell electrons refer to all the electrons in the outermost shell of that atom, so for example, copper would have 2+6+10=18 outer shell electrons. However, valence electrons refer to the electrons that are able to take part in bonding, which for copper will be the 10 electrons in the d orbital. Hope that answers your question and please correct me if I'm wrong!
Thank you for this answer! I had this question as well, and this clears it up.
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Re: Valence Electrons vs. Outer Electrons
Hi! So the inner or core electrons are the electrons from the previous noble gas in your electron configuration. Your outer electrons are your electrons in the highest energy level so you would look at the largest coefficient in your electron configuration. Lastly your valence electrons is the last part of your condensed electron configuration.
Ex: Electron Configuration for Manganese would be:
1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 3d^5 4s^2
- Your inner electrons would be the electron configuration of your previous noble gas in this case, Argon (1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6) which would be a total of 18 inner electrons
- Your outer electrons would be the electrons in the highest energy level so in this case
(4s^2) which would be a total of 5 outer electrons
- Your valence electrons would be the last part of your electron configuration which would be 3d^5 and 4s^2 (which would be a total of 7 valence electrons)
I hope this helps!!!
Ex: Electron Configuration for Manganese would be:
1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 3d^5 4s^2
- Your inner electrons would be the electron configuration of your previous noble gas in this case, Argon (1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6) which would be a total of 18 inner electrons
- Your outer electrons would be the electrons in the highest energy level so in this case
(4s^2) which would be a total of 5 outer electrons
- Your valence electrons would be the last part of your electron configuration which would be 3d^5 and 4s^2 (which would be a total of 7 valence electrons)
I hope this helps!!!
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Re: Valence Electrons vs. Outer Electrons
The easiest way to differentiate between these two is to write out the full electron configuration and the condensed electron configuration.
Here's an example for the element Mn:
Full: 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 4s2 3d5
Condensed: [Ar] 4s2 3d2
From the configurations above, you can figure out the following:
The Inner Electrons are the total electrons of the previous noble gas in the abbreviated configuration (AKA Argon)
1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 (18 Total)
Outer Electrons are the electrons in the highest energy level
4s2 (2 Total)
Valence Electrons are those that take part in bonding and can be found by looking at the last part of the condensed electron configuration
4s2 3d5 (7 Total)
Hope this helps :)
Here's an example for the element Mn:
Full: 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 4s2 3d5
Condensed: [Ar] 4s2 3d2
From the configurations above, you can figure out the following:
The Inner Electrons are the total electrons of the previous noble gas in the abbreviated configuration (AKA Argon)
1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 (18 Total)
Outer Electrons are the electrons in the highest energy level
4s2 (2 Total)
Valence Electrons are those that take part in bonding and can be found by looking at the last part of the condensed electron configuration
4s2 3d5 (7 Total)
Hope this helps :)
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