Question #dfe04

1 Answer
Dec 30, 2017

Metals lose electrons to become cations.

Explanation:

In general, metals are found to lose electrons. Metal atoms like to form positive ions because of their low electronegativity, based on their position on the periodic table, and the amount of electrons that they have.

Atoms want their electron shells to be full. It will be much easier, for example for a metal like sodium, which has 11 electrons when it's neutral, to lose 1 electron to have 2 full electron shells, instead of taking 7 more electrons to fill its 3s and 3p orbitals.

A positive ion is called a cation.

Therefore, the correct statement is :

Metals lose electrons to become cations.