Electron affinity.

[405404782 Gabriel Rigole 4F]

This may seem like a silly question, but can someone explain electron affinity to me?

[John Arambulo 1I]

Electron affinity is the absolute value of the energy associated with an atom in the gas phase gaining of an electron. All this means is that electron affinity describes the ease at which an atom in the gas phase accepts an electron.

[Isabella Dal Porto 1H]

Basically when a neutral atom gains some electrons, an energy change occurs. This energy change is called the electron affinity.

[AmyL_3L]

Electron affinity is the amount of energy used or released when an electron is added to an atom. Therefore, a negative ion is formed. Its periodic table trend is that it increases across a period from left to right and decreases down a group.

[rohun2H]

Electron affinity is essentially the amount of energy spent when an electron is added to a neutral atom, forming an anion.

[Qilan Li 4I]

Electron affinity reflects the ability of an atom to accept an electron. When an electron is added to a gaseous atom, an energy change occurs which is the electron affinity. Atoms with greater effective nuclear charge have greater electron affinity.

[britthanul234]

Electron affinity is the ability for an atom to accept electron. Greater nuclear charge means greater electron affinity.

[Nikki Razal 1L]

Electron affinity is the energy released when an electron is added to a neutral atom to become an anion.

[Charysa Santos 4G]

Electron affinity is simply the potential of an atom to accept an electron (or more than one) based on its size (how many shells does it have/how far is its valence shell from its nucleus) and whether or not it almost has a full valence shell (lefthand side of the periodic table of elements tend to want to give their electrons away = low electron affinity, right side of periodic table of elements tend to want to gain more electrons as they are nearly full = high electron affinity).