Electronic Structure part 1

Electronic structure is probably one of the most difficult and important concepts to understand at AS
level. Dont worry if you find it difficult initially, give it time, and you will begin to understand it.

Going back a few years, you were told that an atom consisted of a positive nucleus surrounded by
negatively charged electrons, held together by electrostatic attraction (+/- attraction). This is true but a
bit simple, so we are now going to look at how the electrons are arranged around the nucleus in more
detail.

One thing to keep in mind with this topic: we are just trying to identify more accurately where the
electrons are. If you feel confused, all we are doing is zooming in on the electrons.

Shells
Not all the electrons in an atom are the same distance from the nucleus. Some are very close to the
nucleus and some are further away.

The electrons are found in different regions or shells, which is a term that you will know from GCSE.

a shell is just a region where electrons exist.

Also from GCSE you will be familiar with notation like 2,8,1 to show how the 11 electrons of sodium are
arranged i.e. 2 electrons in the 1st shell, 8 in the 2nd and 1 in the 3rd.

1st shell: closest to the nucleus and holds only 2 electrons

2nd shell: a bit further from the nucleus and holds 8 electrons

3rd shell: a bit further again from the nucleus and holds 18 electrons

There are of course more than three shells, it just depends on the size of the atom that you are looking at.
As you go further from the nucleus, the shells become larger and are at a higher energy.

The diagram below shows the shell representation for nickel, which has 28 electrons in total, giving a 2,8,
18 configuration:
 The diagram left shows the electrons placed on the circles.
This is just to show the different shell boundaries. But it implies
that the electrons are orbiting the nucleus a bit like when
planets orbit the sun. Its not quite like that. The electrons are
found somewhere within each shell, they are not in nicely
defined orbits. Its just easier to draw it as above.

Sub Shells
As we said in the introduction, we are zooming in on the electrons. We can now look inside the shells to
try to find where the electrons are, which leads us on to sub shells.

a sub shell is a section of a shell. The electrons are somewhere within the sub shells

Now, we cant just spit the shells up any old style, the clever scientists have already done that for us. They
know that there are different sub shells and that they are different sizes.

There are only 3 different sub shells that you need to look at: s, p and d. Dont worry about where the
letters came from, thats just what they use. These sub shells are different sizes and therefore contain
different numbers of electrons:

the s sub shell can only hold 2 electrons

the p sub shell can hold 6 electrons

the d subshell can hold 10 electrons.

Dont worry about what these sub shells look like or how many sections at this point. In my head I just
imagine the shell as a circle and then a shape inside it. It doesnt really matter what you think of, as long
as you have the concept of breaking the shell into sections.

Orbitals

Zooming in further still, inside the sub shells we find orbitals, which is as far as we are going to go into the
atom.
 an orbital is the space where the electrons (probably) exist

So we have finally found those pesky electrons! A very important point: any orbital can only hold 2
electrons. This applies to any orbital of any element in any shell.

The names of the orbitals are the same as the names of the sub shells, which can be a bit confusing.

any s sub shell only has 1 s orbital 2 electrons in total

any p sub shell has 3 p orbitals 6 electrons in total i.e. 3 x 2

any d sub shell has 5 d orbitals 10 electrons in total i.e. 5 x 2

For the 3 x p orbitals, it is worth knowing that they are px, py ad pz. A different orbital on the x, y and z
axes. Its not majorly important but you will probably see it in books. The d orbitals are quite complicated,
so just know that there are five of them.

It doesnt matter what shell we are looking at, the subshell/orbital theory is all the same e.g. the 2p
subshell holds 6 electrons as does the 5p subshell. The shell number just means it is further from the
nucleus.

Orbital Shapes

Examiners like to ask about the shapes of orbitals. This is very

simple; s orbitals are spherical and the p orbitals are dumb bell
shaped. Thats it! Forget about d orbital shapes.

Notation

To put this theory into a useable written format we can look at the shells and sub shells and combine
them.

The notation is simply the shell number with the subshell letter written next to it:
 1st shell, only has the s sub shell, we combine 1 and s 1s

2nd shell, has s and p sub shells 2s and 2p

3rd shell, has s, p and d sub shells 3s, 3p and 3d

1s means the s sub shell in the 1 st shell. Thats all that exists for the 1 st shell, there are no other sub
shells.

The 2nd shell is bigger and can hold up to 8 electrons. These are distributed between s and p sub shells.
We can write this as 2s and 2p. Two electrons go in to the s orbital and the other 6 in to the three p
orbitals.

The 3rd shell is bigger again and we have the 3s, 3p and 3d sub shells to accommodate 18 electrons. So
two electrons in the s orbital, 6 in the three p orbitals and ten in the five d orbitals.

You can keep going with this as far as you want, you just keep adding more sub shells. If you can
understand how to accommodate 18 electrons for now, then you are doing great!

Shell 1st 2nd 3rd

No. of electrons 2 8 18

Subshells s (2 electrons) s (2 electrons) s (2 electrons),

p (6 electrons) p (6 electrons)
d (10 electrons)
Notation 1s 2s and 2p 3s, 3p and 3d

be careful when you are referring to orbitals. I have heard students talk about the 2p orbital but its
the 2p sub shell. Remember that there are three p orbitals. The 2p refers to all three of these orbitals.

This topic can become confusing, so it is vital to keep in mind the big picture and keep it simple i.e.
zooming in on where the electrons are:

Shells Sub shells Orbitals

If in doubt, think back to the 2,8,1 type of notation from GCSE and it will help to keep you on track.