How do electron configurations affect properties and trends of a compound?

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How do electron configurations affect properties and trends of a compound?

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Answer 1 · 2014-03-19T23:35:57

The most important consequence of electron configurations is the number of bonds that an atom can form to other atoms.

Example:
An oxygen atom has a $2 p^{4}$ $2p^4$ configuration in the valence shell, which means that two electrons are unpaired, and it can form bonds to two other atoms (e.g., $H_{2} O$ $H_2O$ ) or two bonds to one other atom (e.g., $O_{2}$ $O_2$ ).

Carbon has a $2 s^{2} 2 p^{2}$ $2s^2 2p^2$ electron configuration (2 unpaired electrons), and in this configuration it can bind to two other atoms (e.g., $C H_{2}$ $CH_2$ radical). But another low-energy configuration, $2 s^{1} 2 p^{3}$ $2s^1 2p^3$ , has 4 unpaired electrons and can bind to 4 other atoms (e.g., $C H_{4}$ $CH_4$ ). which is usually much more energetically favorable.

There are other consequences of electron configurations that lead to specific spectroscopic and magnetic properties, but bonding is the most important.

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How do electron configurations affect properties and trends of a compound?

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