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Lesson 3
The periodic table and electron configuration
Welcome to the third lesson in this chemistry subject. In this lesson the
focus is on the periodic table and electron configurations.
It should take about 10 hours to complete this lesson.
Objectives
By the end of this lesson you should be able to...
• define the following terms: periodic law, main group element, inner transition
element, transition element, group, period, metal, non-metal
• draw the Lewis dot structure depicting the electron configuration of an element
The periodic table was designed to There is a good YouTube video introducing the
classify all known elements and periodic table at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=5MMWpeJ5dn4
provide the reader with a wealth of
58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71
Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu
Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium Lutetium
* If this number is in parentheses, then 140.12 140.91 144.24 (145) 150.36 151.96 157.25 158.93 162.50 164.93 167.26 168.93 173.04 174.97
it refers to the atomic mass of the
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103
most stable isotope.
Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr
Thorium Protactinium Uranium Neptunium Plutonium Americium Curium Berkelium Californium Einsteinium Fermium Mendelevium Nobelium Lawrencium
232.04 231.04 238.03 (237) (244) (243) (247) (247) (251) (252) (257) (258) (259) (262)
Activity 3.1
Complete the following self assessment.
Electron configuration
Electron shells
Electron sub-shells
sub-shells and so on. Sub-shell type is designated using the letters s, p, d and f which
denote sub-shells of increasing energy and size.
Refer to Tables 2.5 and 2.6 on page 50 of your text book. These tables show the
distribution of electrons in their respective orbitals and shells.
Electron orbitals
• Each orbital can hold up to two electrons with spins paired. No more than two
electrons can exist in a given orbital – only if they have opposite spins.
• Electrons occupy the orbitals of a sub-shell such that each orbital acquires one
electron before any orbital acquires a second electron. All electrons in such singly
occupied orbitals must have the same spin. Therefore, when there is a set of
orbitals of equal energy each
orbital becomes half filled before Re-read Section C Electron Configuration of
Atoms are Governed by Three Rules on page 51
any of them becomes completely
in the text book.
filled.
Electron configuration
An electron configuration is a
statement of how many electrons an Re-read Section D Showing Electron
atom has in each of its electron sub- Configurations: Orbital Box Diagrams and
Section E Showing Electron Configurations:
shells. Configurations are not written
Noble Gas Notations, on pages 52–54 in your
in words, they are written to indicate text book. See also Figure 2.14 in your text book
h o w m a n y e l e c t r o n s o f va r i o u s for the ‘spin’ of electron pairing ‘spins’.
energies an atom has. Sub-shells
containing electrons are
listed in order of
increasing energy, are
designated by using
number and letter
combinations (1s, 2s, 2p).
An orbital diagram is a statement of how many electrons an atom has in each of its
electron orbitals.
Examples of the electron configurations and their diagrams are shown in the text book
on page 53 in Table 2.7.
The first shell, that is, the ‘1’ shell, can hold
two electrons.
The additional information you need to understand this table is that within each shell
there are sub-shells.
The 1 shell has only one sub-shell: the s sub-shell. The s sub-shell can hold only two
electrons.
In fact 3 shells can also contain another large sub-shell called the 3d sub-shell: this
can hold 10 electrons.
arrangement of the periodic table we see that each period represents 1 shell. The first
period sees electrons packing the 1 shell. Second period sees electrons pack the 2
shell. Third period sees electrons pack the 3 shell.
Further down this system breaks down with the four period seeing outer shell
electrons packing the 4s2 then 3d then 4p sub-shells. But don’t be concerned about
elements after
argon (Ar).
Groups I and II
have outer
electrons in the s sub-shell.
Groups III to VIII have outer electrons occupying the p sub-shell (2p from B to Ne, 3p
from Al to Ar, and 4p from Ga to Kr). Groups 3B to 11B (Sc to Zn) have outer
elements going into the d sub-shell.
The groups in the periodic table represent elements with the same electron
configuration in their outermost shell.
A Lewis structure shows the symbol of Read Section the Chapter 2 Summary on pages
60–61 in the text book.
the element surrounded by a number
of dots equal to the number of
electrons in the outer shell of an atom of that element. Table 2.8 on page 55 of your
text book shows Lewis dot structures for the first 18 elements of the periodic table.
Refer to example 2.7 on pages 55–56 of your text book. This example shows how to
draw the Lewis dot diagram for nitrogen using
the electron configuration.
Activity 3.3
Revision problems