Beryllium: electrons

The difference between these two transitions is that the beryllium has a stronger nuclear charge. Boosting berylliums electron away from the nucleus, therefore, requires more energy. 

The magnitude and shape of such a mean-field potential is shown below [21] in figure B3.1.4 for the two 1 s electrons of a beryllium atom. The Be nucleus is at the origin, and one electron is held fixed 0.13 A from the nucleus, the maximum of the Is orbital s radial probability density. The Coulomb potential experienced by the second electron is then a function of the second electron s position along the v-axis (coimecting the Be nucleus and the first electron) and its distance perpendicular to the v-axis. For simplicity, this second electron... 

Table 2.6 shows the electron affinities, for the addition of one electron to elements in Periods 2 and 3. Energy is evolved by many atoms when they accept electrons. In the cases in which energy is absorbed it will be noted that the new electron enters either a previously unoccupied orbital or a half-filled orbital thus in beryllium or magnesium the new electron enters the p orbital, and in nitrogen electron-pairing in the p orbitals is necessary. 

The hydrides of beryllium and magnesium are both largely covalent, magnesium hydride having a rutile (p. 36) structure, while beryllium hydride forms an electron-deficient chain structure. The bonding in these metal hydrides is not simple and requires an explanation which goes beyond the scope of this book. 

The normalisation factor is assumed. It is often convenient to indicate the spin of each electron in the determinant this is done by writing a bar when the spin part is P (spin down) a function without a bar indicates an a spin (spin up). Thus, the following are all commonly used ways to write the Slater determinantal wavefunction for the beryllium atom (which has the electronic configuration ls 2s ) ... 

Magnesium [7439-95-4] atomic number 12, is in Group 2 (IIA) of the Periodic Table between beryllium and calcium. It has an electronic configuration of 1T2T2 3T and a valence of two. The element occurs as three isotopes with mass numbers 24, 25, and 26 existing in the relative frequencies of 77, 11.5, and 11.1%, respectively. 

With modern detectors and electronics most Enei -Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS) systems can detect X rays from all the elements in the periodic table above beryllium, Z= 4, if present in sufficient quantity. The minimum detection limit (MDL) for elements with atomic numbers greater than Z = 11 is as low as 0.02% wt., if the peaks are isolated and the spectrum has a total of at least 2.5 X 10 counts. In practice, however, with EDS on an electron microscope, the MDL is about 0.1% wt. because of a high background count and broad peaks. Under conditions in which the peaks are severely overlapped, the MDL may be only 1—2% wt. For elements with Z < 10, the MDL is usually around 1—2% wt. under the best conditions, especially in electron-beam instruments. 

Electron Probe X-Ray Microanalysis (EPMA) is a spatially resolved, quantitative elemental analysis technique based on the generation of characteristic X rays by a focused beam of energetic electrons. EPMA is used to measure the concentrations of elements (beryllium to the actinides) at levels as low as 100 parts per million (ppm) and to determine lateral distributions by mapping. The modern EPMA instrument consists of several key components ... 

Staeking faults and sometimes proper polytypism are found in many inorganic compounds - to pick out just a few, zinc sulphide, zinc oxide, beryllium oxide. Interest in these faults arises from the present-day focus on electron theory of phase stability, and on eomputer simulation of lattice faults of all kinds investigators are attempting to relate staeking-fault concentration on various measurable character-isties of the compounds in question, such as ionicity , and thereby to cast light on the eleetronic strueture and phase stability of the two rival structures that give rise to the faults. 

Beryllium forms a series of cyclopentadienyl complexes [Beftj -CsHiY] with Y = H, Cl, Br, Me, —C=CH and BH4, all of which show the expected C5, symmetry (Fig. 5.10a). If the pe/ifo/topfo-cyclopentadienyl group (p. 937) contributes 5 electrons to the bonding, then these are all 8-electron Be complexes consistent with the octet rule for elements of the first short... 

Electrons are not only charged, they also have a characteristic physicists call spin. Pairing two electrons by spin, which has two possible values, up or down, confers additional stability. Bei yllium (Be, atomic number 4) has two spin-paired electrons in its second shell that are easily given up in chemical reactions. Beryllium shares this characteristic with other elements in column two, the alkaline earth metals. These atoms also generally form ionic bonds. Boron... 

In its general corrosion behaviour, beryllium exhibits characteristics very similar to those of aluminium. Like aluminium, the film-free metal is highly active and readily attacked in many environments. Beryllium oxide, however, like alumina, is, a very stable compound (standard free energy of formation = —579kJ/mol), with a bulk density of 3-025g/cm as compared with 1 -85 g/cm for the pure metal, and with a high electronic resistivity of about 10 flcm at 0°C. In fact, when formed, the oxide confers the same type of spurious nobility on beryllium as is found, for example, with aluminium, titanium and zirconium. 

From Figure 6.8 it is possible to predict the electron configurations of atoms of elements with atomic numbers 1 through 36. Because an s sublevel can hold only two electrons, the Is is filled at helium (Is2). With lithium (Z = 3), the third electron has to enter a new sublevel This is the 2s, the lowest sublevel of the second principal energy level. Lithium has one electron in this sublevel (ls s1)- With beryllium (Z = 4), the 2s sublevel is filled (ls22s2). The next six elements fill the 2p sublevel. Their electron configurations are... 

If you look carefully at Figure 6.15, you will note a few exceptions to the general trends referred to above and illustrated in Example 6.11. For example, the ionization energy of B (801 kj/mol) is less than that of Be (900 kj/mol). This happens because the electron removed from the boron atom comes from the 2p as opposed to the 2s sublevel for beryllium. Because 2p is higher in energy than 2s, it is not too surprising that less energy is required to remove an electron from that sublevel. 

There are a few species in which the central atom violates the octet rule in the sense that it is surrounded by two or three electron pairs rather than four. Examples include the fluorides of beryllium and boron, BeF2 and BF3. Although one could write multiple bonded structures for these molecules in accordance with the octet rule (liable 7.2), experimental evidence suggests the structures... 

Notice that the beryllium atom has no unpaired electrons, the boron atom has one, and the carbon atom two. Simple valence bond theory would predict that Be, like He, should not form covalent bonds. A boron atom should form one bond, carbon two. Experience tells us that these predictions are wrong. Beryllium forms two bonds in BeF2 boron forms three bonds in BF3. Carbon ordinarily forms four bonds, not two. 

In the BeF2 molecule, there are two electron-pair bonds. These electron pairs are located in the two sp hybrid orbitals. In each orbital, one electron is a valence electron contributed by beryllium the other electron comes from the fluorine atom. 

The situation in beryllium metal is more complex. We might expect all of the 2s molecular orbitals to be filled because beryllium has the electron configuration ls22s2. However, in a crystal of beryllium, the 2p MO band overlaps the 2s (Figure 5). This means that, once again, there are vacant MOs that differ only infinitesimally in energy from filled MOs below them. This is indeed the basic requirement for electron conductivity it is characteristic of all metals, including lithium and beryllium. 

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