Atoms

The basic building blocks of matter

Ancient Ideas about the Nature of Matter

All matter is made of what was called primal matter.

1. Thales (625 - 547 BC) water

2. Anaximenes (570 - 500 BC) air

3. Heraclitus (500 BC) fire

All substances are composed of four elements fire, air, water and earth in various proportions

... -Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)

All things are composed of very small bits of matter that cannot be further divided.

- Democritus (460 370 BC) and his teacher Leuccipus (500 BC)

Ex. Consider a bar of iron, an element with specific properties. After continued cutting into smaller and
smaller pieces, one would come to a piece that could no longer be divided.

This indivisible piece is the atom (from the Greek word atomos which means indivisible) of which
all matter is made.

Daltons Atomic Theory

John Dalton (1766 1844)

1. All matter is made up of very tiny, indivisible particles called atoms.

2. All atoms of the same element have the same properties. Atoms of different elements have different
properties.

3. Atoms of different elements combine in a definite ratio of small whole numbers to form compounds.

4. When matter undergoes changes, whether physical or chemical, the atoms are merely rearranged. No
atom is created or destroyed.

Evidence for Daltons Atomic Theory

 Unique behavior of each element all samples of an element, regardless of size or source, have the
same properties. No two elements have the same set of properties although they may be similar in some
aspects.

- explained by the postulate that all atoms of a given element are identical but different from those of
any other element. (2nd postulate)

Unique behavior of each element

Example: both hydrogen and helium are colorless gases at room temperature and have very low densities. But
hydrogen is very reactive while helium is inert and unreactive

Law of Conservation of Mass

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743 1794)

All matter can be neither created nor destroyed.

During a physical or chemical change, the total mass of all substances before and the total mass of
substances after the change are the same.

- Daltons atomic theory explained this fact in the following way: If all matter consists of
indestructible atoms, then any chemical reactions simply changes the attachments between atoms but does not
destroy the atoms themselves (4th postulate).

Law of Conservation of Mass

Lavoisier performed an experiment in which he heated a sealed glass vessel containing a sample of tin
and some air

mass before heating = mass after heating

glass vessel + tin + air = glass vessel + tin calx (tin oxide) + remaining air

A 0.455-g sample of magnesium is allowed to burn in 2.315 g oxygen gas. The sole product is
magnesium oxide. After the reaction, the mass of unreacted oxygen is 2.015g. What mass of
magnesium oxide was produced? (0.755g)

Law of Constant Composition/ Law of Definite Proportion

Joseph Proust (1754 1826)

Any compound is always made up of elements in the same proportion by mass, regardless of how the
samples were prepared or where they originated (3rd postulate).
Law of Constant Composition

Sample A

10.000g

H 1.119g

O - 9.881g

%H = (1.119/10.000) x 100%

= 11.19%

%O = (9.881/10.000) x 100%

= 88.81%

Sample B

27.000g

H - 3.021g

O - 23.979g

%H = (3.021/27.000) x 100%

= 11.19%

%O = (23.979/27.000) x 100%

= 88.81%

A 0.100-g sample of magnesium, when combined with oxygen, yields 0.166g of magnesium oxide. A
second magnesium sample with a mass of 0.144g is also combined with oxygen. What mass of
magnesium oxide is produced from this 2nd sample? (0.239 g)

Monoatomic, Diatomic, and Polyatomic Elements

Element a substance that is composed of only one kind of atom

 Monoatomic elements consist of single atoms that are not connected to each other.

examples: helium, neon

Diatomic elements contain two atoms in each molecule, connected to each other by a chemical bond.

examples: O2, H2, N2, F2, Cl2, Br2, I2

Polyatomic Elements have more than 2 atoms in each molecule

examples: O3, P4, S8

Some aspects of Daltons original atomic theory have been revised to take into account observations made later:

Atoms are not indestructible. They consist of still smaller particles

The atoms of one element may differ in mass but identical in some aspects

Subatomic Particles

Three subatomic particles make up all atoms: protons, electrons, and neutrons

Proton has a positive charge (+1)

- has a mass of 1.6726 x 10-24 g

Atomic Mass Unit (amu)

1 amu = 1.6605 x 10-24 g

Mass of proton = 1.0073 amu 1 amu

Electron has a charge of -1

- has a mass of 9.1094 x 10-28g or

5.4859 x 10-4 amu or

1/1837 that of the proton

Neutron has no charge

- has a mass of 1.6749 x 10-24 g or 1.0087 amu 1 amu

Protons and neutrons are found in a tight cluster in the center of an atom called the nucleus.

Electrons are found as a diffuse cloud outside the nucleus

Atomic Number, Z

- The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom.

- The identity number of an atom; no two elements have the same number of protons in the nuclei of
their atoms

- Equal to the number of electrons in a neutral atom

Atomic number, Z = number of protons

= number of electrons in a neutral atom

Mass Number, A

- The sum of the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.

- Electrons are not counted in determining mass number because the mass of an electron is so small
compared to that of protons and neutrons.

Mass number = number of protons + number of neutrons

Atomic Notation

If you know the atomic number and the mass number of an element, you can properly identify it

Symbol for atomic nucleus:

The mass number is written in the upper-left corner (as a superscript) of the symbol of the element,
and the atomic number in the lower left-hand corner (as a subscript).

Indicate the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons in 35Cl.

Write an appropriate symbol for the species with 47 protons, 61 neutrons, and 47 electrons.

Isotopes

Although we can say that atoms of an element always have the same number of protons and electrons,
we cannot say that the atom must have a particular number of neutrons

Isotopes atoms with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons
 - atoms of the same element that differ in mass number

- properties of isotopes of same element are almost identical; they differ, however, in
radioactivity properties

- some elements occur naturally as only one isotope (examples: gold, fluorine, aluminum)

How many neutrons are in each isotope of oxygen? Write the symbol of each isotope.

1. oxygen-16 (8)

2. Oxygen-17 (9)

3. Oxygen-18 (10)

Ions

The species formed when an atom either loses or gains electrons

Carries a net charge

Adding one or more electrons to a neutral atom produces a negatively charged ion (anion)

Removing one or more electrons results in a positively charged ion (cation)

The number of protons never changes when an atom becomes an ion

The charge on an ion is equal to the number of protons minus the number of electrons

Write an appropriate symbol for the species with 29 protons, 34 neutrons, and 27 electrons.

A= 63 Z= 29 Symbol= Cu Charge= 2+

Determine the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons in an ion of sulfur-35 that carries a charge of
2-.

P 16; N 19; E 18

Atomic Mass

The atomic mass of an element given in the Periodic Table is a weighted average of the masses (in amu)
of its isotopes found on the Earth
 Atomic mass of an element = (fractional abundance of isotope 1) (mass of isotope 1) +
(fractional abundance of isotope 2) (mass of isotope 2) +

The atomic mass of an elements isotope is very close to its mass number (the number of protons and
neutrons in its nucleus) because protons and neutrons have a mass of approximately (but not exactly) 1
amu.

The natural abundances of the three stable isotopes of magnesium are 78.99% magnesium-24 (23.98504
amu), 10.00% magnesium-25 (24.9858 amu), and 11.01% magnesium-26 (25.9829 amu). Calculate the
atomic mass of magnesium. Compare with that given in the periodic table.