Question 6.6: Sulfur may be an important element in emerging lighting tech......
Sulfur may be an important element in emerging lighting technology. What is the electron configuration of a sulfur atom?
Strategy We use the energy ordering and number of orbitals for each subshell to arrive at the overall electron configuration. Then using Hund’s rule, we can predict the detailed electron configuration for an atom of sulfur.
Sulfur has 16 electrons, so we can place two in 1s, two in 2s, six in 2p, two in 3s, and four in 3p to get 16. The electron configuration is 1s^22s^22p^63s^23p^4.
For the detailed configuration, we must consider how to distribute the four electrons in the 3p subshell. We imagine placing the first three electrons each into separate 3p orbitals and then filling one of those orbitals by adding the fourth electron. The resulting configuration is shown below.
Check Your Understanding What is the electron configuration of a silicon atom?