How many valence electrons can an atom have?
2 Answers
the first subshell has 2, and all the other subshells have 8. Helium is stable.
Explanation:
I'm not exactly sure how in depth you need it to be, but in case you do, each orbital is arranged according to s sub-orbitals, p sub-orbitals, d sub-orbitals, and f sub-orbitals. Each sub-orbital has a fixed amount of electrons that it can hold.
The first orbital has an s orbital only which can hold a maximum of 2 electrons. This is labeled as
- Helium:
- Hydrogen
When you have 2 shells, what happens is that there are 2 subshells. 1 s subshell and 1 p subshell, however, because you are 2 shells away from the nucleus, then it changes to
- carbon:
- Oxygen:
I'll go into more detail if you ask me to but I think this covers it all.
In atoms before the third period, the number of electrons outside of the noble gas core add up to no more than
But that means nothing regarding the number of valence electrons for atoms past the third period.
The valence electrons are simply those that are most important in chemical bonding, irrespective of whether they are in the highest
The number of valence electrons most used in practice is shown in the oxidation state.
Here are two exceptions to the notion that all the electrons outside the noble gas core are valence...
#"Ni": [Ar] 3d^8 4s^2# ,#10# electrons past the noble gas core;
max valence electrons used so far:#4# , e.g. in#"BaNiO"_3# .
#"Rh": [Kr] 4d^7 5s^2# ,#9# electrons past the noble gas core;
max valence electrons used so far:#6# , e.g. in#"RhF"_6# .
But of course, not all of these outer-core electrons are used. In
In principle, more than
Iridium currently holds the record with
Its electron configuration demonstrates that they are from the
#[Xe] 4f^color(red)(14) 5d^color(blue)(7) 6s^color(blue)(2)#