Metals Vs. Nonmetals

[Jose Robles 1D]

Which form anions? Which form cations? And why?

[305376058]

Metals tend to form cations, while nonmetals form anions. This is because metals typically lose from their valence shells in order to obtain a full outer shell because it would require more energy to gain them.

[Lauren Bui 1E]

metals tend to form cations and nonmetals tend to form anions.
metals tend to lose electrons to achieve noble gas configuration, because they typically have 1, 2, or 3 electrons.
because nonmetals have 5, 6, or 7 electrons in their valence shell, it requires less energy to gain the necessary electrons, so they form anions.

[Milisuryani Santoso 1L]

Basically, you can kinda tell if an element will form a cation or anion depending on how many valence electrons they have. For metals, it's faster for them to lose electrons to gain a noble gas like configuration and the opposite is generally true for nonmetals.

[Natalie C 1K]

metals usually form cations and nonmetals form anions. whether an atom forms a cation or an anion depends on their number of valence electrons. if they have a low number of valence electrons, like metals, then it is easier for them to lose electrons in order to gain a full octet. in contrast, if atoms have a high number of valence electrons, then it is easier to gain electrons in order to gain a full octet. you can see this visually on the periodic table, and you can see where the metals and nonmetals are in relation to the noble gases, which is the configuration that atoms are trying to reach in order to be the most stable.

[Sydney Pell 2E]

The majority of elements are most stable when they have 8 valence electrons, filling up their outer shell. So, elements will either try to lose or gain electrons based on how many electrons they have in their valence shells to begin with.

The reason metals will lose their valence electrons to form cations is that they want to achieve an electron configuration similar to that of their preceding noble gas. Metals usually have 1, 2, or 3 electrons in their valence shell, and losing them would give them 8 valence electrons and thus make them more stable. It is easier for a metal to lose 1-3 electrons than it is to gain 5-7 electrons.

P-block nonmetals will form anions because they have more valence electrons. To reach 8 valence electrons, it takes less energy for nonmetals to gain a 2-4 electrons than it would for them to lose all of their original valence electrons. Since they gain electrons, the particle becomes a negative anion with a configuration similar to the one of the following noble gas.

[Kennedi2J]

I was looking for an answer to that, that explanation was very helpful!

[abby hyman]

Nonmetals do not form cations because their ionization energy is too high, they share electrons to form covalent bonds

[Elizabeth Johnson 1I]

How do metalloids play into this?