Electrons

Left picture: During the binding energy lab, we used cardboard, magnets, and a rubber band to see if binding energy was affected more by shielding or the pull of protons.

Right picture: This is an example of a PES diagram and ordering elements from highest to lowest binding energy.

These videos are from our homopolar motor experiment, where we used a battery, magnet, and copper wire to create a circuit.

During our second journey in chemistry, we learned about electrons and their characteristics. We started with learning how to write out an element’s electron configuration. This tells us where the element is on the periodic table and how full its outer energy level is. Through this we were able to learn about magnetism and how some elements are more magnetic than others. The hardest part for me was learning how to write out the outer subshell with the arrows and then using that to see if something was paramagnetic or diamagnetic.

We then moved into phase two, which was about Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES). This is a technique used to determine the identity of an atom or molecule by measuring how difficult it is to eject all of its electrons. By using our knowledge of electron configuration, we were able to make PES diagrams, identifying elements that had a higher or lower binding energy. This was really cool to be able to use something that we had learned and build on it to dive deeper into how electrons behave and interact. The binding energy lab really helped me understand the difference between a proton pull vs shielding, and showed which one makes a bigger difference in binding energy.

I would like to learn more about how whole molecules are read on a PES machine, such as CO2, and how the machine knows there are two oxygen atoms to one carbon atom.