II.

Atoms Part 2 Page 1

Topic II. Atoms Part 2

Reading Integrated Chemistry Today (2nd Ed.), L.H.M Chung, Book 1A, pg 25 – 32
Assignment

Objectives 1.2.2 – 1.2.3

– define atomic number (Z) and mass number (A) in terms of the number of protons and/or neutrons
– explain the meaning of isotopes
– recognise that the scale for relative atomic masses is based on 12C = 12.00
– calculate the relative atomic mass of an element from the relative abundance and mass numbers of its isotopes
and vice versa
– describe and draw the electronic diagram of atoms, based on a simple understanding of the principle for
building up of electrons in 'shells'
– recognise that the stability of the noble gases is related to their electronic arrangements
– deduce the electronic arrangement of an atom with a given atomic number (up to Z = 20) and vice versa.

Notes B. Mass of atom

Mass number (no. of proton + no. of neutron)

The mass of an atom is so small that it cannot be measured by
conventional method, like a balance. A technique called mass
spectroscopy (not required in certificate level) is used to determine
the absolute mass of an atom.

Besides direct determination of the mass of an atom by mass

spectroscopy, the mass of an atom is also closely related to the
number of protons and neutrons present.

Mass number of an atom is defined as the sum of the number of

proton and number of neutron in the atom.
(Why is the number of electrons not counted ?)

Mass number (A) = number of proton + number of neutron

Atomic number (no. of proton)

In a periodic table, the elements are arranged according to the
number of protons in the atom. The order is called the atomic
number of elements.

Atomic number is unique to an element. i.e. If the atomic number

is 6, that must be a carbon atom. If the atom is a carbon atom, there
must be 6 protons. (The no. of electron and the no. of neutron are not
unique to an element).

Atomic number (Z) = number of proton.

No. of electron
Since an atom is electrical neutral and electron has the same amount of charge as proton, the number of electron
and the number of proton in an atom must be the same. By knowing the mass number and the atomic number, the
number of protons, neutrons and electrons of an uncharged atom can be determined.

No. of proton = atomic number

No. of neutron = mass number - no. of proton (atomic number)
No. of electron = no. of proton = atomic number

Mass number is represented by capital letter A and atomic number is represented by capital letter Z.
II. Atoms Part 2 Page 2

Use of symbols

In order to save time, symbols are often used to represent different particles.

Meaning of a symbol :

mass number electrical ch arg e

atomic number Symbolnumber of particle

The four corners can be used separately depending on the focus of the representation.

For example
16
8
O means an oxygen atom with 8 protons and mass number 16.
16
O means an oxygen atom with mass number 16 (proton no. of oxygen must be 8).
O 2− means an oxygen atom (oxide ion) with 2 electrons more than the no. of proton (8 protons and 10 electrons)
O2 means an oxygen molecule consists of 2 oxygen atoms O=O.

1. Isotope

It is found that most of the element has more than one kind of atoms. Take hydrogen as the example, all hydrogen
atoms contain 1 protons but some of them contain no neutron, some of them contain 1 and some of them contain
2. This means that they will have different mass number. The three kinds of atoms are called isotopes of
hydrogen.

Isotopes means atoms of the same element but with different masses.

According to the mass number, the three isotopes of hydrogen are called hydrogen-1, hydrogen-2 and hydrogen-3.

12 13 14
6C 6C C
6

Relative
natural 98.89 % 1.11 % ≈0%
abundance
Similarly, carbon also has 3 isotope, carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14.

carbon-12 carbon-13 carbon-14

no. of proton 6 6 6
no. of neutron 6 7 8
mass number 12 13 14
II. Atoms Part 2 Page 3

2. Relative isotopic mass and carbon-12 Scale

The absolute mass of an atom is very small. e.g. a carbon-12 isotope has a mass 0.000000000000000000000199 g
only. This small no. is very difficult to handle. For the sake of convenience, another scale called carbon-12 scale is
used instead of metric scale to express the mass of atoms in chemistry.

According to carbon-12 scale, by definition, a carbon-12 isotope has the mass of 12 atomic mass units (a.m.u.) or
just 12 units.

Mass of carbon-12 isotope ≡ 12 atomic mass units (a.m.u) ≡ 0.000000000000000000000199 g

1
If an atom has a mass of that of a carbon-12 atom, the atom is said to have a mass of 4 units.
3

For example
The mass of 23Na isotope is 1.916 times of that of 12C isotope, therefore, the mass of 23Na is 22.992 units (12 ×
1.916) according to the carbon-12 scale. The mass of the isotope obtained in this way is called the relative
isotopic mass (isotopic mass) because it is a relative value from the comparison with 12C isotope. According to
the definition, relative isotopic mass should have no unit.

The relative isotopic mass of 23Na is 22.992 and the mass no. of 23Na is 23.

Both the values and the origins of the two numbers are different. The relative isotopic mass is determined by
experiment but the mass no. is only from the counting of the no. of proton and neutron present.

However, the two values are very close to each other. By approximation, the two may be considered the same.

Relative isotopic mass ≈ mass no.

In the rest of the course, we will assume the two are having the same value.
II. Atoms Part 2 Page 4

3. Relative atomic mass

Because most of the elements (except sodium and iodine) have more than 1 isotope with different percentage of
natural abundance, a single value of relative isotopic mass is not good enough to represent the average mass of the
atom of an element.

e.g. For chlorine, 75% of the natural occurring isotopes are 35Cl and the remaining 25% are 37Cl. Even an average
of the two, 36 [(35+37)÷2], would not be good enough to show the difference in abundance.

To solve this problem, a weighted average value of different isotopes, called relative atomic mass, is used.

Just imagine, firstly, knead all the isotopes of chlorine into a single mass. And then divide the whole mass into
different chlorine atoms again. The hypothetical chlorine atom obtained will have the composition the same as to
the following one:

The mass of this hypothetical atom = 35 × 75% + 37 × 25% = 35.5

The value 35.5 is the weighted average of the mass of all chlorine isotopes, called relative atomic mass.

N.B. Both relative isotopic mass and relative atomic mass have no unit. Usually they are only called isotopic
mass and atomic mass.
Isotopic mass is an indicator of the mass of a particular isotope of an element.
Atomic mass is the weighted average of the isotopic masses of all the isotopes of an element in the
nature.

Calculation of the relative abundance of isotopes from atomic mass

Bromine has the relative atomic mass 79.9. It has only 2 isotopes, bromine-79 and bromine-81. Calculate the
relative abundance of the two bromine isotopes.

Let x % be the percentage abundance of bromine-79

79.9 = x% × 79 + (1 - x%) × 81
x 100 - x
79.9 = × 79 + × 81
100 100
7990 = 79x + 8100 - 81x
2x = 110
x = 55

Therefore, the relative abundance of bromine-79 is 55% and bromine-81 is 45%.

II. Atoms Part 2 Page 5

C. Electronic arrangement of atoms

According to Bohr’s model of atoms, electrons are orbiting around the nucleus. Bohr also proposed that the
electrons are moving in different concentric orbits around the nucleus. These concentric orbits are called shells of
electron or electron shells.

In 11Na, there is 2 electrons in the first shell, 8 electrons in the second shell and the remaining 1 in the 3rd shell.
There are two ways to present the arrangement of electrons (electronic configuration) in 11Na.

1. by notation 2. by electron diagram

2, 8, 1

an electron may be represented by a cross (×), a dot

( ) or the symbol (e-)

The maximium number of electrons in a shell can be calculated by the expression 2n2 where n is the shell no.. The
electrons fill up the shell one by one according to the shell no.. When a shell is completely filled, the remaining
electrons will go to the next shell until all the electrons are used up.

Shell number maximium no. of electrons (2n2)

1 2
2 8
3 18 (8)
4 32

For some reasons, the electronic configuration of 19K is only 2, 8, 8, 1. The fourth shell is being filled before the
third shell reaching the maximium no.. The explanation is beyond the scope of certificate level. Since our
discussion will be limited to only the first 20 elements, we will not have the chance to look at the elements with a
completely filled third shell (e.g. 35Br - 2, 8, 18, 7).

1. Electronic configuration of the first 20 elements

1H 1 11Na 2, 8, 1
2He 2 12Mg 2, 8, 2
3Li 2, 1 13Al 2, 8, 3
4Be 2, 2 14Si 2, 8, 4
5B 2, 3 15P 2, 8, 5
6C 2, 4 16S 2, 8, 6
7N 2, 5 17Cl 2, 8, 7
8O 2, 6 18Ar 2, 8, 8
9F 2, 7 19K 2, 8, 8, 1
10Ne 2, 8 20Ca 2, 8, 8, 2
II. Atoms Part 2 Page 6

a) Stability of noble gas configuration

Helium (2), neon (2,8) and argon (2, 8, 8) are called noble gases because of their extremely low reactivity. They
are also known as monatomic gases because their atoms never join with any other atoms and only exists
individually. It is surprised that all of them have a completely filled outermost electron shell. From this
observation, we know that there must be certain connections between the reactivity and the electronic
configuration of an element.

b) Drawing of electron diagram

In the drawing of an electron diagram of an atom, the electrons fill up the electron shells in a particular order.
Except the first shell, the electrons fills up the four corners of the shell before pairing up. The following is an
electron diagram of aluminium atom.

An aluminium contains 13 electrons and has an electronic configuration of 2, 8, 3.

12 Symbol
4 8
representing
the nucleus
1

3 5
11
7 Al 9
13

6 10

Glossary mass number atomic number symbol isotope carbon-12 scale

relative isotopic mass (isotopic mass) relative atomic mass (atomic mass) weighted average
hypothetical electronic configuration notation electron diagram
electron shell (shell of electron) noble gas
II. Atoms Part 2 Page 7

Past Paper 92 I 3 b i iii iv

Questions 96 I 7 a i ii
98 I 1 a b

92 I 3 b i iii iv
3b Neon, a monatomic gas, occurs naturally as a mixture of three isotopes. The relative abundance of these isotopes
is tabulated below:
Isotope 20 21 22
Ne10 10Ne 10Ne
Abundance (%) 90.52 0.31 9.17
i State the number of electrons in the outermost shell of a neon atom. 1
eight 1 mark
iii What is meant by the term 'isotope' ? 1
Atoms of an element having the same atomic number but different mass numbers. 1 mark
(or equivalent statement)
C A common mistake was to regard isotopes as different elements with the same atomic number but different mass
numbers.
iv Calculate (1) the relative atomic mass of neon 2
20 × 90.52 + 21 × 0.31 + 22 × 9.17
(1) The relative atomic mass of neon is 1 mark
100
= 20.19 (20.187 or 20.1865) 1 mark
[Deduct 1 mark if unit is given]
C (1) A number of candidates overlooked the fact that 'relative atomic mass' should not have an unit.

96 I 7 a i ii
7a The boxes below show some information about two atoms, hydrogen (H) and deuterium (D) :

(Relative atomic mass : O = 16.0; Molar volume of gas at room temperature and pressure = 24.0 dm3)
i Suggest a term to indicate the relationship between a hydrogen atom and a deuterium atom. 1
isotope 1 mark
C Many candidates wrongly spelt the term 'isotope / isotopy'. Some candidates even wrote the term 'isomer' which
represents an entirely different concept.
ii State the number of neutrons in a deuterium atom. 1
One / 1 1 mark

98 I 1 a b
1 Lithium is a Group I element in the Periodic Table. It occurs naturally in two isotopic forms. The relative
abundance of the each of these isotopes is shown in the table below:
6 7
Isotope Li Li
Relative abundance (%) 7.4 92.6
1a What is the meaning of the term 'isotope' ? 1
1b Calculate the relative atomic mass of lithium. 2
II. Atoms Part 2 Page 8
90 4
1 A 4 Which of the following combinations concerning the
isotopes of an element is correct ?
No. of protons No. of neutrons No. of electrons
A. same different same
B. same same different
C. different same different
D. same different different

92 30
1 A 30 The atomic number and mass number of element E are 8
and 17 respectively. What are the numbers of protons and
neutrons in an atom of E ?
Number of protons Number of neutrons
A. 8 9
B. 8 17
C. 9 8
D. 9 17

94 2
1 B 2 Consider the information given in the table below :
Atom Atomic number Mass number No. of neutrons
P 6 14
Q 7 14
R 13 7
S 18 10
T 10 10
Which of the following atoms are isotopes ?
A. P and Q
B. P and R
C. R and S
D. S and T

95 1
A 1 The atomic number of an element X is 18. An atom of X
has a mass number of 40. The atom has
A. 18 protons, 22 neutrons and 18 electrons.
B. 18 protons, 22 neutrons and 22 electrons.
C. 18 protons, 40 neutrons and 18 electrons.
D. 22 protons, 22 neutrons and 18 electrons.

95 4
C 4 Boron consists of two isotopes. The table below lists the
relative abundance of these two isotopes.
Isotope Relative abundance
10
5 B 19.7 %
11
5 B 80.3 %
The relative atomic mass of boron (correct to 1 decimal
place) is
A. 10.4.
B. 10.6.
C. 10.8.
D. 11.0.