Question

What element has 14 electrons?

Answer 1

Hint: The element is a tetravalent metalloid that is hard and brittle in nature. Metalloids are those elements that exhibit the property of both metals and nonmetals. It is essentially used in semiconductor electronics to make integrated circuit chips.

Complete answer:
An element is any substance that is entirely made up of the same types of atoms. For example, carbon is an element that consists of only carbon atoms. The atomic number of the element tells us the number of protons present in an atom. For a neutral atom, the number of protons must be equal to the number of electrons.
The atomic number of an element also gives its location on the periodic table.
It is given in the question that an element has 14 electrons. This implies that it must be having 14 protons and thus its atomic number is 14.
To find the element, first, we have to write the possible electronic configuration of the element:
\[1{{\text{s}}^{2}}2{{\text{s}}^{2}}2{{\text{p}}^{6}}3{{\text{s}}^{2}}3{{\text{p}}^{2}}\]
The number of electrons present in the outermost shell is 4. Thus, the element has 4 valence shell electrons. So, the period number of this element is 4.
And the group number to which the element belongs will be equal to:
\[\begin{align}
  & (\text{No}\text{. of valence electrons}+10) \\
 & \text{i}\text{.e}\text{. }\left( 4+10 \right)=14\text{th group} \\
\end{align}\]
Therefore, the element is a p-block element. And the element corresponding to the 4th period and 14th group of the periodic table is silicon.
Hence, the answer is silicon which has 14 electrons.

Note:
The electrons present in the inner orbitals are not available for interaction or bond formation with other atoms. Only those electrons that are present in the outermost orbital are responsible for and take part in chemical reactions. These outermost electrons are known as valence electrons and they determine the combining capacity of an atom.