(a) What does the term paramagnetism mean? (b) How can one
deter...

Question

(a) What does the term paramagnetism mean? (b) How can one 
determine experimentally whether a substance is paramagnetic? 
(c) Which of the following ions would you expect to be 
paramagnetic: O2+ , N22 -, Li2+ , O22 - ? For those ions that are 
paramagnetic, determine the number of unpaired electrons.

Accepted Answer

hey everyone in this example, we need to define para magnetism. So let's go ahead and just think of an atom here, for example, nitrogen. And let's go ahead and write out its shorthand configuration or the noble gas configuration. So when we write out its configuration we would use the noble gas helium in brackets. Because it comes before the period number where nitrogen is located which is period two. And moving back into period two, we would land in our S sub level which begins because we are at period two at the second energy level. So we would have to s and we should recall that the S sub level has a total of one orbital that can hold a maximum of two electrons. So we would fully fill this in and have to S two then to get to nitrogen, we would move into our P sub level which also begins at the second energy level. So we would have to pee and we would count for three units to land on our adam nitrogen. So we would have an exponent of three which would represent three electrons filled in our p orbital or P sub level. To complete our configuration for nitrogen, we should recognize that our P sub level has a total of three orbital's which can hold a maximum of six electrons. However, we've only filled in three electrons. And if we represent these three electrons by recalling our poly exclusion principle which states that we should fill in each electron individually before pairing them up. We would have one electron here in the first orbital a second here, and then our third electron here in our third orbital, meaning we have a total of three um paired electrons in our P block or P orbital p sublevel. And so therefore we would say that nitrogen is para magnetic. And we would recall that para magnetism describes atoms with unpaid electrons that are attracted two a magnetic field. So para magnet para magnetism, sorry, is this property describing atoms with unpaid electrons attracted to a magnetic field? And this would be our final answer as the definition for para magnetism. So we can include property of in the beginning of our definition. So this will be our final answer. If you have any questions, please leave them down below and I will see everyone in the next practice video.

(a) What does the term paramagnetism mean? (b) How can one determine experimentally whether a substance is paramagnetic? (c) Which of the following ions would you expect to be paramagnetic: O2+ , N22 -, Li2+ , O22 - ? For those ions that are paramagnetic, determine the number of unpaired electrons.

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