What is an ION?? ?

Question

I know an 'Ion' is an electrically charged atom, but I dont know why?? is it because it has a differnet number of electrons to protons??

so if an atom had 2 protons, and 2 electrons it would have no charge (element???)

and if it had 2 protons, and 3 electrons, would it be (element name +1)??

I find Ions, Isotopes, Atoms, and Elements quite confusing.

Answer 1

To take your example, two protons and two electrons give you the element helium (symbol He). Two protons and three electrons would give you the negatively charged ion, or anion, He- (that - should be above the line). (As it happens, this particular ion does not form, but I am using it to show the reasoning.)

A lithium atom (Li) has three protons and three electrons. In its compounds, it always loses one electron, giving you an overall positive charge, in the Li+ cation.

Of course, all atomic nuclei except for the simplest form of hydrogen also contain neutrons, but they don't have any charge on them.  It is a charge of the nucleus that is equal to the atomic number, and tells you which element it is.

Many ions contain more than one atom.  For example, carbonate, CO3 2-

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

simply put, an atom is the smallest unit of a chemical element. It is composed of neutrons, protons and electrons.

For a neutral atom, no. of protons = no. of electrons

However, for most elements, there is a tendency to form ions in order to reach an octet (or duet) configuration which is more stable. In order to do so, the element would either lose an electron or gain an electron. Metals have the tendency to lose electrons forming positive ions (also called cations) while non metals have the tendency to accept electrons forming negative ions (anions). So, in your question, an element with 2 protons and 3 electrons would form a negative ion with charge -1. To determine the charge of an ion, compare the numbers of protons and electrons. If there are more electrons, the ion has a negative charge and if there are more protons, the ion has a positive charge.

An isotope of an element has the same number of proton but different number of neutrons.

Elements basically consist of only one type of molecules. Examples are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen...

Answer 3

Atoms are negatively charged as they have an equal number of protons to electrons. Protons are positive, whereas electrons are negative.

An ion is an atom that has gained or lost electrons. If an atom gained one electron it would become -1 because it would have one more negative charge than positive. If it had lost an electron instead it would be +1.

Answer 4

atoms: smallest thing in the world

protons: positive charge in an atom

electron: negative charge in an atom

neutron: neutral charge in an atom

elements: same types of atoms put together

isotope: atom with the same atomic number but different mass number

good luck

Answer 5

ok

ok

ok--this is gonna be long but just read it all.

atom:  just one of these, yeah?  it has an overall zero charge or neutral charge.  in the nucleus (the middle) it has protons (which have positive charge) and neutrons (neutral/zero charge).  then outside that going around and around are electrons, which have negative charge.  even though they're much smaller than protons, their charge has the same weight as a proton, only the opposite.  in other words, a proton has +1 charge and an electron has -1 charge.  since the atom has an overall zero charge, there has to be a balanced number of protons and electrons in it.  i.e., if there are 5 protons, there are 5 electrons.  (5 of +1 is +5, 5 of -1 is -5, and if you put them together it's +5-5 which is just 5-5=0, overall NO charge, also called neutral)

the number of protons determines which kind of element it is.  like, if it has 1 proton, it's a hydrogen atom.  if it has 2, it's a helium atom, and so on.  The number of protons is called the "atomic number" and that's the number that tells you which element it is.  like you can look on the periodic table and see that 14 is Si, silicon, or whatever you want.

isotopes:  isotopes are atoms of the same kind of element, only they have different numbers of neutrons.  Neutrons don't change the charge of the atom, they just change the weight of the atom.  So like there is carbon-14 and carbon-12.  Both forms have 6 protons because 6 is the atomic number of carbon.  BUT, carbon-12 has 6 neutrons (6+6=12) and carbon-14 has 8 neutrons (6+8=14).  carbon 12 is the most common, which is why carbon's molecular weight is like 12g/mol.  carbon-14 would have a weight of like 14g/mol (only neutrons and protons are counted in the weight, because electrons are too small to matter)

ok.  ions.  You got it right, ions are atoms that get a charge.  

remember i wrote that atoms are overall neutral because they have the same number of protons as electrons.  Well, when an atom gains or loses an electron, it becomes an atom.  it's only when the number of electrons changes.  they're just up kinda far from the nucleus floating around, so they're easier to remove.  (protons don't get removed in this ionization.  If you tried to remove a proton you'd blow up your city trying.  no i'm not kidding.  it's serious business)

ok, a proton is +1 and an electron is -1.  so when you lose an electron, you lose some negative charge, so become more positive.

let's look at Sodium (Na) number 11.

when it's an atom, it has 11protons, 11 electrons.  if we add up the charges

(11 x +1) + (11 x -1) = 11-11=0 an overall neutral charge.  but let's say we lose an electron for 10 electrons and 11 protons.  let's do the math.

(11 x +1) + (10 x -1) = 11-10=1  so it has an overall positive charge of 1. we call that Na+  you don't have to put a 1 but you can for Na+1(if it lost two electrons, like say Ba lost two electrons it would be Ba2+ because the positive charges (protons) outnumber the negative charges (electrons) by two)

Ok, if you lose electrons you become positively charged so you're called a cation (it's just the type of ion)

Now for anions (negatively charged ions)

ok why don't' we look at your example.  you're right in the first case, if it had 2 protons, 2 electrons, it would have no charge.  so it would be an atom.  The element that it would be is Helium, and this is just because it has 2 protons.  say, if we had 6 protons and 6 electrons, it would be an atom (because it's no charge) but the element it would be is carbon because it has 6 protons.

ok.  But if your helium atom, with its 2 protons, had 3 electrons, it would have a negative charge.  let's do the math again, shall we?

(2 x +1) + (3 x -1) = 2 - 3 = -1, see overall charge of -1.

OK RECAP TIME.  if you didn't read any of that up there, (i hope you did though) READ THIS

An atom:  in the nucleus (center) it has protons (charge +1) and neutrons (no charge).  and around that are electrons (charge -1).  since an atom has an overall zero charge, it will always have the same number of protons as electrons.

the number of protons (called the atomic number) determines what element it is.

the number of neutrons determines what isotope it is.  isotopes of the same element have the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutrons (common example is carbon-12 and carbon-14).  isotopes of the same element have different weights.  Only protons and neutrons are counted when determining the weight; electrons are too small.

Ions:  what an atom is called when it loses or gains an electron and thus becomes charged.  The number of protons is not changed.

cation: positively charged ion.  happens when an electron is lost.  when protons outnumber an electron.  example Na becomes Na+

anion:  negatively charged ion.  happens when an electron is gained.  when electrons outnumber protons.  example F becomes F-

also fyi, like the other person said, there are polyatomic ions, which are like, well, like compounds, with an overall charge.  like, one is OH- which is hydroxide ion.  O has a -2 charge, H has a +1 charge, if you put it together, you get an overal -1 charge (which is what the - is in OH-).  the charges are written as superscripts (like, you know, the little letters that are up high on the side)