Answer to Question #162424 in Inorganic Chemistry for PRAGATEESWARAN

Question

a.     Why a solid has a definite shape but a liquid does not.

b.     Why a liquid has a definite volume but a gas does not.

c.      Why negative ions are larger than their corresponding atoms.

d.     How scandium, a transition metal forms an ion with a noble gas structure.

e.     How the effective nuclear charge changes as you        

      move from left to right across the periodic table and 

      why?

f.       How the effective nuclear charge changes as you        

move from left to right across the periodic table and why.

g.     The information that you can get from a symbol of an element in the periodic table.

Answer 1

A liquid takes the shape of its container because particles in a liquid can flow to new locations. The volume of a liquid is constant because forces of attraction keep the particles close together. Behavior of Solids: Solids have a definite volume and shape because particles in a solid vibrate around fixed locations.

The negative ion (anion) is greater than its netral atom because the negative ion is having more electrons than neutral atom as this more electrons repel each other in ultimate shell and increases the size, and one more reason is that the nucleus attracts the outermost shell of negative ion with less force.

When scandium donates three electrons from the outer state orbitals then it forms Sc+3 and its electron configuration is equal to the electron configuration of Argon which is a noble gas. Hence Scandium forms a tri positive ion with a noble gas structure.

The element symbol is always almost accompanied by other information such as atomic number and atomic weight, state of matter etc. Atomic number describes the number of protons in one atom of that element