electron configuration

electron configuration

1. The nucleus contains positive protons and neutral neutrons. Surrounding the nucleus are energy shells containing negative electrons. You should also know that protons and neutrons both have a relative mass of 1 and that the relative mass of an electron is almost 0.

2. The protons and the neutrons are found in the nucleus at the centre of an atom. The electrons are in shells or energy levels surrounding the nucleus. Each shell can hold electrons up to a maximum number.

3. When the first shell is full, electrons then go into the second shell and so on. The maximum number of electrons in each shell is in the firts shell 2 electrons the second shell can hold 8 electrons and the third shell holds 18 electrons

4. Electrons within each shell will not have the same amount of energy and so the energy levels or shells are broken down into subshells called orbitals. These are called s, p, d and f orbitals. The orbitals have different energy states.