CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

When explaining isoelectronic atoms in class today he kept mentioning the electrons in terms of OF electrons. What are OF electrons?

Kelsey Ash 1D wrote:When explaining isoelectronic atoms in class today he kept mentioning the electrons in terms of OF electrons. What are OF electrons?

I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "of electrons", however, I can try my best to explain the concept of isoelectronic atoms without using confusing terminology. Isoelectronic atoms are atoms or cations/anions with the same amount of electrons but different amounts of protons. Because they have different amount of protons, their sizes are going to differ because the strength of the positive nuclear charge is dependent on the amount of protons. Therefore, anions are going to be bigger than the cations that have the same amount of electrons as the anions. A good example of this is O2- and Na+. Although both have the same amount of electrons, the oxygen anion is bigger than the sodium cation.

Isoelectronic atoms have the same number of electrons but one is an ion of some sorts and the two behave chemically differently. For example, F- and Ne both have 10 electrons, but behave differently when it comes to bonding, chemical reactions, etc....

Isoelectronic atoms are atoms and ions with the same number of electrons.

Isoelectronic refers to atoms and ions with the same number of electrons! The professor explained this topic by comparing F- to the element neon. With fluorine as an anion, it is gaining an electron so will have a total of 10 electrons similar to that of neon. However, the idea of isoelectronic is that even though they might have the same number of electrons, the chemistry, bonding, and structure might be completely different! Hope this helps(:

Referring to how atoms and ions having the same number of electrons, the chemistry, bonding, structure will be different as mentioned above. Part of the reason is that despite that atoms and ions having the same number of electrons, they will have a different amount of protons from one another.

It just means atoms (different element) but have the same number of electrons. So one would either be a cation or anion