01:160:161 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3.7-3.9: Unpaired Electron, Alkali Metal, Electron Configuration

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Chemistry
• Course: 01:160:161
• Professor: Paul Kimmel

Document Summary

We determine the electron configuration of cations by subtracting the number of electrons indicated by the magnitude of the charge. For ions, we add the number of electrons indicated by the magnitude of the charge of the anion. When writing the electron configuration of a transition metal cation, we remove the electrons in the highest n-value orbitals first, even if this does not correspond to the reverse order of filling. For transition metal cations, the order in which electrons are removed upon ionization is not the reverse of the filling order. When a fourth period transition metal ionizes, it normally loses its 4s electrons before its 3d electrons because: The ns and (n-1)d orbitals are extremely close in energy, and depending on the exact configuration, can vary in relative energy ordering. As the (n-1)d orbitals begin to fill in the first transition series, the increasing nuclear charge stabilizes the (n-1)d orbitals relative to the ns orbitals.