Which arrangement of cations (yellow) and anions (blue) in a lattice is the more stable? Explain your reasoning. (a)

(b)

Video transcript

Hi everyone for this problem. It reads consider the arrangement of the lattice below where the orange spheres are cat ions and the green spheres are an ions which structure is more stable. All right, So let's go ahead and draw in our cat ions and anN ions for each of the structures. All right. So, we know that the orange fears our cat ions and our green spheres are an ions. All right. So, knowing that let's compare the two structures. Okay, so for number one, we see that for the ann ions there's no separation of the an ions. They're really close together. And let's remember that like charges repel. Okay, so very close and ions is not going to be ideal. So for this one we have no separation of charges. However, for our second arrangement we see that there's a better separation of of an ions. So for a structure one we see that this is not going to be ideal. Okay, these an ions being so close together is not ideal because like charges repel. And so because we have a better separation of the ann ions for our second arrangement, this one is going to be more stable. Okay, so that is it for this problem. I hope this was helpful