CHM 101 Intro, Week 1, By DVC
CHM 101 Intro, Week 1, By DVC
• The Atom is
• the basic building block of chemistry and matter
• The smallest unit into which matter can be divided without the release
of electrically charged particles.
• smallest unit of matter that has the characteristic properties of a
chemical element
MOLECULES AND IONS
• MOLECULES
• A molecule is a collection of two or more atoms that are bonded together
by attractive forces or by chemical bonds.
• A molecule may be made up of similar atoms of the same element or
dissimilar atoms of two or more elements. For example a chlorine molecule
(Cl2) contains two chlorine atoms while a water molecule has two hydrogen
atoms and one oxygen atom bonded together.
• Definition: A molecule is the smallest part of a substance that can exist
independently and still retain the characteristics of that substance.
• IONS
• An ion is an atom or group of atoms that carries a positive or negative
electric charge as a result of having gained or lost one or more electrons.
• There are two types of ions, namely the positively charged ions called the
cations and the negatively charged ions called the anions.
• Cations are formed when an atom loses one or more electrons. Anions are
formed when an atom gains one or more electrons. (see examples in
notebook and textbook)
ELEMENTS AND COMPOUNDS
ELEMENTS
• An element is a chemical substance that cannot be split/ broken down into
other substances by chemical reactions.
• Elements are pure substances made up of only one type of atom. Atoms of the
same element have the same number of protons.
• Elements are divided into four major categories; metals, non-metals, metalloids
and noble gases.
• All the known elements are arranged in the Periodic Table.
COMPOUNDS
• A compound is a substance which contains two or more elements chemically
combined together in a fixed ratio.
• In the formation of a compound, the component elements must undergo
chemical changes such that the new compound formed is a new substance with
entirely different properties from those of its component elements. Example
ethanol ( CH3CH2OH) is a compound made up of three elements - carbon,
hydrogen and oxygen, which have different properties from ethanol( See notebook
for more examples)
CHEMICAL REACTIONS & CHEMICAL EQUATIONS
• Chemical Reactions
• A process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set
of substances to another.
• A process in which reactants are transformed into products.
• Chemical Equations
• A chemical reaction is described by a chemical equation,
which is an expression that gives the identities and quantities
of substances involved in a chemical reaction.
• They are symbolic representations of chemical reactions in
which the reactants and products are expressed in terms of
their respective chemical formulae.
• The reactants are on the left and the products on the right
with both separated by an arrow.
SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
• Atomic Number
• Atomic Number of an element represents:
• i. the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom of the element.
• ii. the number of electrons around the nucleus of a neutral atom of the
element.
• iii. the number assigned to the element in the orderly arrangement of
elements in the Periodic Table.
• Atomic Number = no. of protons = no. of neutrons
• Mass Number
• The mass number of an element is the total sum of protons and neutrons
found in the nucleus of an atom of the element.
• The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are called nucleons.
• Mass number = no. of protons + no. of neutrons
= Atomic no + no. of neutrons
• No. of neutrons = Mass no. – Atomic no.
ISOTOPY
• Isotopy is a phenomenon whereby different atoms of the
same element have the same atomic number (i.e have similar
chemical properties) but different mass numbers.
• The sum total of protons and neutrons in an isotope
constitutes the mass number of that particular isotope while
the number of protons is its atomic number. These numbers
are usually written on the symbols of the isotope as a
superscript and subscript respectively.
• For example chlorine has two isotopes, Cl-35 and Cl-37. Both
have the same number of protons, i.e 17 but different
numbers of neutrons, 18 and 20,
• See more examples of isotopes in notebook.
RELATIVE ATOMIC MASS
• The atom of Carbon-12 has been adopted by modern
chemists as the standard for defining the relative mass of
other elements and given a basic mass value of 12 units. It
replaced H because of its advantages over H which include
stability (atomic mass remains constant), abundance, wide
availability and accessibility, ease of storage and
transportation since it’s a solid.
• The relative atomic mass of an element is the number of
times one atom of that element is heavier than one –twelfth
of one atom of carbon-12.
• The RAM carries no unit since it is a ratio. In recent years,
however, the atomic mass unit (amu) is sometimes used. On
the carbon-12 atomic mass scale scale, carbon-12 isotope is
arbitrarily assigned a mass of exactly 12 amu. 1 amu
therefore equals exactly 1/12th of the mass of C-12 isotope.
RELATIVE ATOMIC MASS