Write the electronic configuration for nickel(#28).

Question

I know it is 1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 4s^2 3d^8

(b) How many electrons are there of highest energy in nickel?
Is it 8?

(c) how many electrons are there in the outermost energy level(orbit) of nickel?
Is this 8 also?

Answer 1

Your electron configuration is right.

b) Yes, there are 8 electrons in the highest energy sublevel.

c) For part c I think it would be 10 because when you look at the last orbit, it includes both s-block and d-blocks. So when you include the electrons from 4s^2 and 3d^8, there are 10 electrons.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

In order to answer this question correctly you need to write the electron configuration as
1s2 2s2 2p6 3s3 3p5 3d8 4s2

c)There are two electrons in the outermost shell. Those are the 4s2 electrons and they are the electrons lost to make Ni^2+ compounds. N = 4 is obviously a "further away" shell than N = 3.