Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thebrain13 on 28/11/2011 22:01:33
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we hear all the time about ions where the atom has less electrons than protons. But are there any stable materials that have more electrons than protons? Or would the electric charge just blow it apart to quickly to study well?
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As far as I know there are no stable materials in solid or liquid form that are entirely composed of charged atoms because the repulsive forces of the charges would completely swamp any chemical bonding forces and blow the atoms apart whatever the polarity of their charge. If such materials existed they could form the basis of incredible batteries
Charged atoms or ions only exist in gaseous plasmas or liquid solutions of ionic materials in an ionising solvent (usually water). in both these cases there are always a balance of positive and negative charges. to make the materials neutral when looked at over a reasonable volume
It is true that negative ions are rarer than positive ones in the plasma state where the negative charges are usually just free electrons. This is because plasmas have quite a high temperature because of the velocity needed to create the positive ionisation.
Positive and negative ions are normal in solutions the negative ones are usually acid radicals like chloride, sulphate, nitrate etc
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thanks, the question I was wondering after that was, what would electron orbitals look like on atoms with greater amounts of electrons vs. protons?
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generally the electronic structure of an ion is very similar to that of the atom with the same number of protons as electrons because it is the electronic behaviour that dominates. This can be seen in the spectra of ionised atoms.
Now in tenuous gas at high temperatures where collisions are rare it is very easy to get very high degrees of ionisation of atoms and unusual spectrum lines these can be seen in nebulae and auroras.
however an atom can only hold as many electrons as the positive charge on the nucleus will hold so negative ions tend to be unstable and weakly bound and the only negative ions of any significance are halogens and possibly oxygen. The weak binding also means that they dissociate at quite low temperatures.
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You can, of course, have particles that have a net charge (positive or negative???).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwannasmile.files.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F01%2Fstatic-electricity.jpg&hash=7cc7266850f412b583b15deb3dff732c)
This would mean that some of the atoms in the kid's hair also have a net charge.
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But are there any stable materials that have more electrons than protons? Or would the electric charge just blow it apart to quickly to study well?
Answer N. 2