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28 February 2018

Rules for Writing Electronic Configuration


Rules for Writing Electronic Configuration

The atom is built up by filling electrons in various orbital according to the certain rules like Aufbau principle, Pauli Exclusion Principle, Hund’s rules of maximum spin multiplicity etc. These are discussed below.

Aufbau Principle:- 

This principle state that the electrons are added one by one the various orbitals in order of their increasing energy starting with the orbital of lowest energy.  The increasing order of various atomic orbital is
1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, 3d, 4p, 5s, 4d, 5p, 6s, 4f, 5d, 6p, 5f, 6d, 7p………………
How to remember such a big sequence is a big deal because it appears to be highly complicated. To make it simple, there is a method to write the increasing order of the orbitals. Starting from the top, the direction of the arrows gives the order of filling of orbital as shown below,
The sequence of atomic orbital orbital shown above is based on (n+1) rule.

(n+1) Rule:-

The energy of an orbital depends upon the sum of value of the principle quantum number (n) and the azimuthal quantum number (l). This is called (n+1) rule. According to rule, “ In neutral isolated atom, the lower the value of (n+1) for an orbital, lower will be its energy However, if the two different type of orbital have same value of (n+1), the orbital lower value of n has lower energy”.


Pauli’s Exclusion Principle:-

According to this principle “no two electron in an atom will have same value of all four quantum number”.
If one electron in an atom has the quantum number n=1, l=0, m=0 and s= +1/2, no other electrons can have the same four quantum numbers.  In other word , one cannot place two electron with the same value of spin quantum number (s) in a 1s orbital. So, the orbital diagram ##(1s) is not possible arrangement of electrons. Rather, the correnct representation must be #$(1s).

Hund’s Rule of Maximum spin multiplicity:-

This rule deal with the filling of electron in the orbital having equal energy also known as degenerate orbital’s. According to this rule “Degenerate orbital must be single occupied before the spin pairing stars”.
This due to the fact that electrons being identical in charge, repel each other when present in the same orbital. This repulsion can however be two electrons move as far as by possible by occupying different degenerate orbital’s. Moreover all the unpaired electrons in a degenerate set of orbital’s must have the same spin.

Electronic Configuration of Various Elements:-

Electronic configuration is the distribution of electrons into orbitals or shells, subshell orbitals an atom. Keeping in view the above mention rule, electronic configuration of any orbital can be simply represented by the notation.                                 n l x
Where- n= Principal quantum number

               l= Symbol of subshell or orbital (s, p, d, f)
              x= Number of electrons in the subshell

To write the electronic configuration, one must know (1) The atomic number (2) The order which orbital are to be filled (3) Maximum number of electrons that can occupies in a shell, sub-shell or orbital. Some more fundamental aspects are
1.      Each orbital can accommodate two electrons.
2.     The number of electrons to be accommodated in a subshell is 2 × number of       degenerate orbitals.


3.    The maximum number of electrons in each shell ( K, L, M, N…) is given by 2n2.   When, n is the principal quantum number.

Factors Responsible for the Extra Stability of Half-Filled and completely filled Subshell

 1. Symmetrical distribution:-


It is well known fact that symmetry leads to stability. Thus the electronic configuration in which all the orbitals of the same subshell are either completely filled or are exactly half filled are more stable because of Symmetrical Distribution of electrons.

2.Exchange energy:-        

The electrons with parallel spins present in the degenerate orbital tend to exchange their position. The energy released during this exchange is called Exchange Energy. The number of exchanges that can take place is maximum when the degenerate orbital are exactly half-filled or completely filled. As a result, the exchange is maximum and is the stability.




 





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