Question

How many electrons does Beryllium have?

Answer 1

Hint:. The answer here is based on the facts about the general concepts of chemistry which says that the number of protons is equal to electrons and this gives the required answer.

Complete step by step answer:
- In the lower classes of chemistry, we have studied the concepts of general chemistry which deals with the fact about the structure of the atom and its constituent parts that is nucleus which is composed of protons and neutrons and the electrons revolve around it.
We shall now see how to know the electrons that are present in an atom.
- Beryllium has an atomic number of 4 and atomic symbol $Be$ and therefore the electronic configuration is $1s^{2}2s^2$.
- Here, the atomic number represents the total number of protons.
- Since we know that the total number of protons is always equal to the number of electrons thus the total number of electrons present is 4.
- Here, in the electronic configuration the number represents the number of electrons and the name electronic configuration itself says it is the number of electrons present in an atom.
Therefore, the correct answer is that there are 4 electrons in a Beryllium atom.

Note: Note that the electronic configuration of an atom or in short the total electrons present in an atom can be written as 2, 2 for Beryllium where the number represents the electrons per shell. This method can be written for the elements which have lesser number of electrons and for larger atoms, the shorthand notations are written.