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Electron Affinity Essay

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Electron Affinity, by textbook definition it’s the energy absorbed or released when an electron is added to a neutral atom. (Ryerson, 2011, 35) Electron affinity is used in many cases First electron affinity in bromine-35, has -324 kJ mol-1, or -5.39. These values show us, that Bromine released energy, and became stable. Bromine would have had an exothermic reaction when the electron was added to the valence shell. This is because, when non-metals gain electrons, the delta energy is negative because they release energy to form an anion (exothermic process); thus, the electron affinity will be negative (Harwood, 2016). There are 28 shielding electrons in Bromine which mean that there more electron-electron repulsion in Bromine than attraction within the nucleus. Moreover, Bromine only needs one more electron to become stable in its valence shell, since it is in the non-metal group, it already has 7 electrons in its valence shell, and so that one electron would stabilize this element. Overall first electron affinity in Bromine would benefit the element in which it would stabilize and also allow energy to be released. …show more content…

Lithium is a metal, so it would’ve had an endothermic reaction, and gained energy to perform electron affinity. This would be because, in a metal element, when an electron is added to the valence shell it would make an endothermic reaction so energy is needed to sustain that electron. (Harwood, 2016) Furthermore, there are only 2 shielding electrons in Lithium, this would mean Lithium would have a very high attraction between its nucleus and electron, which highlights the fact that it would need more energy to keep that nucleus from attracting the new electron. (Jones, 2014) Nevertheless, Lithium is an element which

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