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electron configuration (1 Viewer)

drsabz101

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is the electron configration for silver

2,8,8,28,23?

I am trying to find out how to work out what silver Iodide compound formula would be.
 

leehuan

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Transition metals have a different way of determining electron configuration. Do not go bother trying to do ANY after calcium for no reason.
This occurs mainly due to the orbitals. The octet rule starts to become slightly unimportant after calcium.

For silver, it should be something like 2,8,18,17,2 or 2,8,18,18,1. I will predict the latter due to the fact that the silver ion Ag(+) is formed when only one electron is lost.
 

jathu123

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I'm not an expert at chemistry but ill try to help you. You should know that the atomic number of silver is 47. That means that there are 47 protons and electrons in a neutral silver atom. There's a general formula to find the maximum electron in the nth shell, 2n^2. Using this, you can complete the electron configuration for all the 47 electrons. Keep in mind that for the fourth shell, the maximum electron you get is 32 (by using the formula) but it should be 18 for the atom to be stable. So you get 2, 8, 18, 18, 1.

To find the formula for silver iodide, you can just remember the ionic charge for silver (and some other elements and compounds such as zinc, etc.) at http://www.gpb.org/files/pdfs/gpbclassroom/chemistry/ionicChargesChart.pdf, instead of writing out the electron configuration (which takes time), then do the criss cross method to find the formula.

The charge of Silver is +1 (you can also see that from the last shell in the electron config) and the charge of iodide is -1. Since both the number are same (both 1) the formula is AgI.
 

drsabz101

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Thankyou! I have been using this formula 2n^2, but obviously incorrectly
 

drsabz101

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Do we have to memorise all the common polyatomic ions, or are they usually given in exams?
 

leehuan

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Polyatomic ions do actually have to be memorised. Because my prelim class sucked shit they took ages memorising them. But the ones that becmae HSC chemists remembered them quite easily at around the time the HSC started.

2n^2 is for the maximum amount of electrons per shell (or more accurately speaking, per energy level)
 
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