effective nuclear charge

[ASDIC]

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Hi everyone,

I was going through some MCAT questions and came across the term "effective nuclear charge"...my textbook doesnt talk about it.

Does anyone kno wut it means?


thanks

 

[UCLAstudent]

Basically, it's just the pull that a given electron "feels" from the nucleus. The farther away an electron is from the nucleus, the more shielding there will be from other electrons in lower shells, so the effective nuclear charge will be less. In general, effective nuclear charge increases from left to right on the periodic table (because more protons are being added to the nucleus) and from bottom to top.

Just a side note... all of the trends in the periodic table (ionization energy, electronegativity, electron affinity, etc.) can be explained in terms of effective nuclear charge.

Hope this helps!

 

[IndyZX]

while its probably enough to just know the periodic trends that are derived from the effective nuclear charge, knowing how it works is probably helpful for intuitively thinking about chemistry.

if you have EK chemistry, it is explained very well.