ATOMIC STRUCTURE

Lesson 1. Atomic Models and Theory

Atoms - are the building blocks of matter that make up everything that exists in our world.
- From the Greek word atomos which means “indivisible”.
Trivia: As early as 600 BC, the Gujarati (Indian) philosopher, Acharya Kanad, was the first to think about an atom when he wrote that
“every object of creation is made of atoms which in turn connect with each other to form molecules”
Timeline of Atomic Nature
Between 384-322 B.C. – Aristotle proposed that all substances are composed of four elements such as air, earth, fire, and water in
different proportion.
Approximately 450-B.C. – Empedocles divided matter into four elements: air, earth, fire, and water.
Around 500 B.C. - Democritus and Leucippus proposed that everything is composed of very small bit of matter that is indivisible and
called it atom.
1777 – Antoine Lavoisier made a clarification on his concept of an element that it could not be broken down by any method of chemical
analysis. He devised a theory of the formation of chemical compounds from elements.
1780s – Charles–Augustin de Coulomb explained the idea that like fluids repel and unlike attract. This idea helped in the development
of the theory of absolute measurement.
1803 – John Dalton came up with the so-called atomic theory after he gathered all the findings and results of various experiments
made by the ancient philosophers.
1870s - Sir William Crookes constructed the forerunner of modern television picture tube to investigate the properties of cathode rays.
1896 – Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-ray by observing the fluorescence they produced.
1898 – Pierre Curie and Marie Curie stated that radioactive materials cause atoms to break down spontaneously. As this happens,
radiation is released in the form of energy and subatomic particles.
1898 – Joseph John Thomson discovered the electron.
1900 – Max Planck stated that energy is radiated in small, discrete units, which he called quanta.
1905 – Albert Einstein created the special and general theories of relativity and hypothesized the particle nature of light.
1908-1917 – Robert Millikan worked on atomic physics and major science, dealing with the basic constituents of the universe, the
forces they exert on one another, and the results produced by these forces.
1909-1911 – Ernest Rutherford worked on nuclear physics and invented a detector for electromagnetic waves.
1913 – Neils Bohr proposed the planetary model of an atom. He also made numerous contributions on quantum mechanics.
1923 – De Broglie discovered that electrons have a dual nature similar to both particles and waves – particle/wave duality.
1926 – Erwin Schrodinger explained how the electrons move in an atom as a wave.
1931 – James Chadwick discovered the neutron.

Lesson 2. The Fundamental Components of an Atom

The Subatomic Particles
a. proton (p+) – has an electrical charge of positive one, and it is said to be stable by itself. It is a fairly heavy particle and
resides in the dense nucleus of an atom.
b. neutron (n0) – has no net charge and is located at the center of an atom. Both proton and neutron make up the nucleus of an
atom and these particles are collectively known as nucleons.
c. electron (e-) – has an electrical charge of negative one and said to be smaller than neutrons and protons, and they are found
revolving somewhere around outside the nucleus because its mass is approximately 1/1837 of the mass of proton.
Atomic Number and Mass
Cation – the ion with positive charge, is formed when electron is removed from an atom.
Anion – the ion with negative charge, is formed when the electron is added to an atom.
Atomic number (Z) – the distinctive number of protons in each element and it also represent the number of electron in the same
element.
Mass number (A) – the sum of the numbers of protons and neutrons in an atom.
Isotopes - atoms of the same element which have the same atomic number but different atomic mass.
Nuclide – an atom of a specific isotope.

Lesson 3. The Quantum Mechanical Model of an Atom

Louise de Broglie and Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrodinger proposed that light and atoms might exhibit the same properties
since electrons may also have wave characteristics at times.
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrodinger used mathematical concept to come up with new model for the hydrogen atom, w/c may
be applicable to other atoms known as the quantum (wave) mechanical model of an atom.
Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) formulated his “Uncertainty Principle” w/c states, “It is impossible to determine both the momentum
and the position of an electron at the same time accurately.”
ground state – the lowest energy level or energy state
excited state – when a substance is strongly heated, the atoms absorb energy and the electron will receive energy supplied from
external source, it becomes excited, and it will go to the highest energy state farthest from the nucleus.
valence shell – the highest occupied energy level or electron shell
valence electrons – the electrons occupying the valence shell
closed shell – the shell is completely filled with the assigned electrons

Atomic Orbitals is a region around the nucleus of an atom with the greatest probability of finding the electrons. It is sometimes called
sublevel w/c have different characteristics, shape, size, and energy.
1. s orbital (sharp) – a spherical cloud that becomes less dense as the distance from the nucleus increases. The electrons in
this orbital possess lower energy because they are found close to the nucleus.
 2. p orbital (principal) – a dumbbell-shaped cloud, having two lobes on opposite sides of the nucleus. This orbital has three
types based on their orientation: px, py, and pz.
3. d orbital (diffused) – is like a four-leaf clover, an hour and a ring. There are five d-orbitals with its own spatial orientation: dxy,
dx2y2, dxz, dz2 and dyz.
4. f orbital (fundamental) – difficult to represent, and it is too complex to visualize them. There are seven f orbitals w/c have
complex appearance.
Quantum Numbers - used to describe an electron in an orbit or atomic orbital.
Electron configuration - the probable distribution of electrons around the nucleus among the orbitals.
- the shorthand representation on how each electron is arranged among orbitals, levels, and sub-levels based on
the stated principles.
- represented by a number, a letter, and a superscript.
Three rules serve as guides in order to easily predict the electron’s location:
1. The Pauli’s Exclusion Principle states that no more than two electrons in an atom can occupy an orbital. They must spin in
opposite direction. Electrons are said to be paired if two electrons with opposite spins occupy an orbital and unpaired if a
single electron is present in the orbital.
2. The Hund’s Rule, proposed by Friedrich Hund, states that for a set of orbitals, when electrons occupy orbital of equal energy,
one electron enters each orbit until all the orbital contains one electron with parallel spins. Then the second electron will be
added to each orbital pairing the spins of the first electrons. Hund’s rule is also called as the principle of minimum pairing and
the principle of maximum multipilicity.
3. The Aufbau (a German word that means “building up or construction”) Principle states that electrons fill first the orbitals of
the lowest energy (ground state) until added electrons occupy the available orbital of higher energy (excited state). Orbitals
with equal values of (n+l) will fill with the lower n values first. The progressive addition of electrons builds up the atom.

Origin of Chemical Names and symbols

Alchemy – refers to both an early form of investigation of nature and early philosophical and spiritual disciplines.
Alchemist – the first to use the symbols of the elements in the Middle Ages.
Jons Jacob Berzelius – invented the system of chemical symbols:
a. some elements symbols are either the initial letter of the element or a combination of the first and another letter from the
Latin or English name,
b. the scientists’ or discoverer’ names,
c. countries or places where it was discovered,
d. mythology
e. planets
f. it Greek and German names
g. colors

Origin of the Periodic Table

Periodic Table of Elements – the arrangement of elements according to their chemical and physical properties.
Scientists who contributed and spent time and efforts to the development of the periodic table:
1. Antoine Lavoisier – 1789, a French physicist-chemist, published a book that contained the classification of elements based
on their similar properties. He arranged his list of the 33 elements into four categories, namely: gases, non-metals, metals,
and earths.
2. Johannes Wolfgang Dobereiner – 1817, a German chemist, studied three elements and noticed similarities among the
properties of metals such as Ca, Ba, and Sr. He continued to study another group of three elements and called those groups
triads.
3. A. E. Beguyer de Chancourtois – 1863, had the idea to plot the elements in a spiral around the surface of the cylinder
divided into 16 vertical sections according to the elements’ atomic masses. He called his device telluric helix.
4. John Newlands – 1869, an English chemist, he arranged all the elements known at that time in the order of their atomic
masses, beginning with lithium and noticed the eighth element has similar properties to the first element, the ninth to the
second, and so on. He compared their relationship to the octaves of musical notes and called this pattern the Law of
Octaves.
5. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, a Russian Chemist and Julius Lothar Meyer, a German chemist – 1869, working
independently, presented closely identical version of arranging the elements based on their increasing atomic masses. They
proposed the Periodic Law which states that the properties of elements are periodic functions of their atomic masses.
6. Sir William Ramsay, John Strutt or Lord Rayleigh, and Morris Travers – between 1893 and 1898, made a research not
related to the periodic table, and they worked together to find out if there are unidentified elements existing in the atmosphere.
In 1894, Ramsay and Rayleigh isolated argon from atmospheric nitrogen. Argon is the first noble gas, came from the Greek
word argos, meaning “the lazy one”. In 1895, Ramsay discovered helium derived from Greek word helios, meaning “sun”.
Later on, Ramsay and Travers discovered more gases such as krypton (“hidden”), neon (“new”), and xenon (“stranger”).
7. Henry Moseley- 1913, an English physicist suggested that atomic mass is not the property that governs periodicity, a
discovery he got from his experiments on the X-ray emission spectra. He concluded that it was easier to explain the trends in
Mendeleev’s table if the elements were arranged according to their increasing atomic number. Hence, the periodic law was
restated as “The properties of the elements are periodic functions of their atomic numbers.”

Atomic radius – decreases from left to right in a period

Ionization energy – increases from left to right in a period
Metallic property – decreases from left to right
Electron Affinity – decreases from left to right
Electronegativity – increases from left to right