The Exciting World of Isotopes and Ions in Atoms!
What are isotopes?
a) Forms of the same element with different number of protons
b) Forms of different elements with equal number of protons
c) Forms of the same element with extra electrons
How do ions of an atom differ from isotopes?
Answer:
Isotopes are forms of the same element that contain equal number of protons but differ in the number of neutrons they possess. On the other hand, ions of an atom are atoms that have gained or lost electrons, resulting in a positive or negative charge.
Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which differ in neutron number, although all isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons in each atom. For example, carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14 are three isotopes of the element carbon with mass numbers 12, 13, and 14 respectively.
Ions, on the other hand, are atoms that have gained or lost one or more electrons. When an atom loses electrons, it becomes positively charged and is called a cation. Conversely, when an atom gains electrons, it becomes negatively charged and is called an anion.
The key difference between isotopes and ions is that isotopes have the same number of protons and electrons, but different numbers of neutrons, while ions have the same number of protons and neutrons, but differ in their number of electrons.