Question

How do isotopes differ from ions?

Answer 1

Hint The term isotope is made up of two words iso and tope taken from the Greek words in which iso means same and tope means place i.e. same place. Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which differ in their neutron number.

Complete answer:
An atom is composed of a nucleus which is made up of proton and neutron and electrons are revolving around the nucleus. Protons are positively charged, electrons are negatively while neutrons are neutral in nature i.e. do not contain any charge. Isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in each atom.
Example of isotopes are shown as $^{12}{{C}_{6}}{{,}^{13}}{{C}_{6}}$ these are isotopes of carbon atom which represents same number of protons i.e. 6 and different number of neutrons i.e. 6 and 7. On the other hand ions are described as those atoms which lose or gain an electron. If an atom gains an electron then it becomes negatively charged known by the name anion like if carbon atom gains an electron then it is represented by ${{C}^{-}}$ and if an atom loses an electron then it becomes positively charged known by the name cation i.e. if carbon atom loses an electron then it is represented by ${{C}^{+}}$ ion.
These anions and cations are known as ions whereas isotopes are those which have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons.

Note: Mass number of an element tells us about the number of protons and neutrons in the atom. Protons are generally equal to atomic numbers whereas neutrons can be calculated by subtracting the number of protons from the mass number of an element.