Question

How do you know the charge of an element from the periodic table?

Answer 1

Hint: As we know that charge on the ion is either positive or negative. It is found that the most electropositive elements are placed on the left side of the periodic table. Whereas, most electronegative elements are placed on the right side of the periodic table.

Complete answer:
- We can know the charge of an element from the periodic table by seeing its tendency to either attract or lose an electron.
- As we know that all the electropositive elements are placed in the left side of the periodic table, and all the electronegative elements are placed in the right side of the periodic table.
- Let us take an example of sodium that has electronic configuration of $1s^{2}2s^{2}2p^{6}3s^1$ . Here, we can see that there is one valence electron present in the valence shell, so it can lose the electron and become stable. Here, we can see that sodium by losing an electron gains a positive charge $N{a}^{+}$ and is an electropositive element which is placed in the left side of the periodic table.
- We can simply say that electronegativity increases towards the right side of the periodic table and electropositivity increases towards the left side of the periodic table. And in this way we can know the charge of an element from the periodic table.

Note:
- It is found that the elements acquire charge either positive or negative, only in order to achieve the nearest noble gas configuration, that is found to be the most stable configuration.