Answer to Question #134940 in Inorganic Chemistry for NISAA

Question

The highest energy electrons in an atom Q have the principal quantum number n = 4 and the angular quantum number l = 0. What is the maximum number of electrons present in atom Q?

Answer 1

We are interested in the maximum number of electrons in all the energy levels

n=4 and l=0

That means that we have for;

s; l=0

p; l=1

d; l=2

f; l=3

Thus when n=4 and l=0, then the highest orbital is 4s which has a maximum of 2 electrons.

If we now re-write the electron configuration of Q, we will have;

1s², 2s², 2p⁶, 3s², 3p⁶, 3d¹⁰, 4s²

Thus the total number of electrons is 2+2+6+2+6+10+2 = 30 electrons