Electron Affinity
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Electron Affinity
Can someone explain what electron affinity is? I'm still having a hard time understanding it...
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Re: Electron Affinity
Electron affinity is a measurement of energy released in attaching an electron to a neutral gas atom/molecule. This helps us determine whether or not an atom/molecule is an electron acceptor or donor
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Re: Electron Affinity
To put it simply, it is basically how likely the atom are to "want" another electron (it wants to have full orbital or valence shell of electrons to have a lower overall energy). That's why atoms that are closer to a full outer orbital/shell have a higher electron affinity because they are closer to full than empty and therefore would rather gain another electron to gain their objective of having a valence shell rather than lose an electron to gain the same thing. For example: Fluorine has higher electron affinity than boron because Fluorine "wants" gain an electron in order to have a full valence shell (n=2) whereas Boron would rather lose 3 electrons and just have a full first energy level (n=1) instead of Boron "wanting" to gain 5 electrons in order to have a full valence shell on the second energy level (n=2). That would be much more 'difficult" for boron.
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Re: Electron Affinity
I think electron affinity is basically the likelihood that an atom will gain an electron, based on the amount of energy released when a neutral atom gains an electron.
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Re: Electron Affinity
I believe the main idea we need to understand from electron affinity is that it refers to an atom's likelihood of gaining an electron. The more negative an atom's electron affinity is, the greater attraction that atom has for an electron (keep in mind that energy is released every time an electron is added, so it gets more negative).
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Re: Electron Affinity
Electron affinity measures how inclined an atom is to take on another electron
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Re: Electron Affinity
Electron affinity is the measure of how much an element wants an electron. Elements that are the closest to becoming a noble gas have a high electron affinity since they want to complete their octet more than any of the other elements before it. It can be calculated by finding the difference between the energy of the element without an electron and with an electron (in eV).
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Re: Electron Affinity
Electron affinity is a measurement of how likely an atom is to gain another electron. For example, electron affinity is very high for Group 17 elements, such as F and Cl, because they only need one more electron to complete their octet, so they are very likely to gain another electron. On the other hand, Group 1 elements, such as Na, have low electron affinity because they do not need another electron to complete an octet, instead they want to give up an electron to have an octet.
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Re: Electron Affinity
Electron affinity is the measurement of how attracted it another electron. Also known as how likely it is to gain electrons to complete its octet. An important trend to realize is that it increases as you go to the right and up the periodic table.
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