Question

What is the difference between the ionic radius and the atomic radius of an element?

Answer 1

Hint: We know that the atomic radius is larger than the ionic radius. Because they lose electrons for the formation of octets. This creates a larger positive charge in the nucleus causing the electron cloud to come closer to the nucleus.

Complete answer:
As we know, the atomic radius and ionic radius are used to describe atomic size. It represents the mean distance from the nucleus to the surrounding electrons. The ionic radius is the distance from the nucleus to the outermost electrons in an ion. But the atomic radius is the distance from the center of the nucleus to the outermost shell of an atom.

Sr No.	Atomic Radius	Ionic Radius
1	The atomic radius is the standard radius of that particular element.	Ionic radius is when the atom either gains or loses an electron and turns into an anion or a cation respectively.
2	The number of electrons in the outermost orbit does not change and neither does the orbit which is declared as the outermost one varies.	When any atom gains an electron, it is called an anion. The number of electrons increases but the number of protons in the nucleus remains the same.
3	The number of electrons will always be equal to the number of protons in the nucleus.	The nuclear force attracting the electrons becomes lesser and the atomic size increases.
4	The atomic radius decreases along a period as we go from left to right in the periodic table and increases as we go down the group.	The number of electrons decreases but the number or protons in the nucleus remains the same.

Note:
Remember that the effective nuclear charge is the positive charge of nuclear protons which act on valence electrons. It is less than the total number of protons present in the nucleus due to the shielding effect.