Dalton’s Atomic Theory
The English chemist John Dalton suggested that all matter is made up of atoms,
which were indivisible and indestructible. He also stated that all the atoms of an
element were exactly the same, but the atoms of different elements differ in size and
mass.
Chemical reactions, according to Dalton’s atomic theory, involve a rearrangement of
atoms to form products. According to the postulates proposed by Dalton, the atomic
structure comprises atoms, the smallest particle responsible for the chemical
reactions to occur.
The following are the postulates of his theory:
• Every matter is made up of atoms.
• Atoms are indivisible.
• Specific elements have only one type of atom in them.
• Each atom has its own constant mass that varies from element to element.
• Atoms undergo rearrangement during a chemical reaction.
• Atoms can neither be created nor destroyed but can be transformed from one
form to another.
Dalton’s atomic theory successfully explained the Laws of chemical reactions, namely,
the Law of conservation of mass, the Law of constant properties, the Law of multiple
proportions and the Law of reciprocal proportions.
Demerits of Dalton’s Atomic Theory
• The theory was unable to explain the existence of isotopes.
• Nothing about the structure of the atom was appropriately explained.
• Later, scientists discovered particles inside the atom that proved the atoms are
divisible.
Thomson Atomic Model
The English chemist Sir Joseph John Thomson put forth his model describing the
atomic structure in the early 1900s.
He was later awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of “electrons”. His work is
based on an experiment called the cathode ray experiment. The construction of
working of the experiment is as follows:
Cathode Ray Experiment
It has a tube made of glass which has two openings, one for the vacuum pump and
the other for the inlet through which a gas is pumped in.
The role of the vacuum pump is to maintain a “partial vacuum” inside the glass
chamber. A high-voltage power supply is connected using electrodes, i.e., cathode
and anode, which are fitted inside the glass tube.
Observations:
• When a high voltage power supply is switched on, there are rays emerging
from the cathode towards the anode. This was confirmed by the ‘Fluorescent
spots’ on the ZnS screen used. These rays were called “Cathode Rays”.
• When an external electric field is applied, the cathode rays get deflected
towards the positive electrode, but in the absence of an electric field, they
travel in a straight line.
• When rotor Blades are placed in the path of the cathode rays, they seem to
rotate. This proves that the cathode rays are made up of particles of a certain
mass so that they have some energy.
• With all this evidence, Thompson concluded that cathode rays are made of
negatively charged particles called “electrons”.
• On applying the electric and magnetic field upon the cathode rays (electrons),
Thomson found the charge-to-mass ratio (e/m) of electrons. (e/m) for
electron: 17588 × 1011 e/bg.
From this ratio, the charge of the electron was found by Mullikin through an oil drop
experiment. [Charge of e– = 1.6 × 10-16 C and Mass of e– = 9.1093 × 10-31 kg].
Conclusions:
Based on conclusions from his cathode ray experiment, Thomson described the
atomic structure as a positively charged sphere into which negatively charged
electrons were embedded.
It is commonly referred to as the “plum pudding model” because it can be visualised
as a plum pudding dish where the pudding describes the positively charged atom
and the plum pieces describe the electrons.
Thomson’s atomic structure described atoms as electrically neutral, i.e., the positive
and the negative charges were of equal magnitude.
Limitations of Thomson’s Atomic Structure: Thomson’s atomic model does not
clearly explain the stability of an atom. Also, further discoveries of other subatomic
particles couldn’t be placed inside his atomic model.
Rutherford Atomic Theory
Rutherford, a student of J. J. Thomson, modified the atomic structure with the
discovery of another subatomic particle called “Nucleus”. His atomic model is based
on the Alpha ray scattering experiment.
Alpha Ray Scattering Experiment
Construction:
• A very thin gold foil of 1000 atoms thick is taken.
• Alpha rays (doubly charged Helium He2+) were made to bombard the gold foil.
• Zn S screen is placed behind the gold foil.
Observations:
• Most of the rays just went through the gold foil, making scintillations (bright
spots) in the ZnS screen.
• A few rays got reflected after hitting the gold foil.
• One in 1000 rays got reflected by an angle of 180° (retraced path) after hitting
the gold foil.
Conclusions:
• Since most rays passed through, Rutherford concluded that most of the space
inside the atom is empty.
• A few rays got reflected because of the repulsion of its positive with some other
positive charge inside the atom.
• 1/1000th of the rays got strongly deflected because of a very strong positive
charge in the centre of the atom. He called this strong positive charge
“nucleus”.
• He said most of the charge and mass of the atom resides in the nucleus.
Rutherford’s Structure of Atom
Based on the above observations and conclusions, Rutherford proposed his own
atomic structure, which is as follows.
• The nucleus is at the centre of an atom, where most of the charge and mass is
concentrated.
• The atomic structure is spherical.
• Electrons revolve around the nucleus in a circular orbit, similar to the way
planets orbit the sun.
Limitations of the Rutherford Atomic Model
• If electrons have to revolve around the nucleus, they will spend energy and
that too against the strong force of attraction from the nucleus, a lot of energy
will be spent by the electrons, and eventually, they will lose all their energy and
will fall into the nucleus so the stability of atom is not explained.
• If electrons continuously revolve around the ‘nucleus, the type of spectrum
expected is a continuous spectrum. But in reality, what we see is a line
spectrum.
Subatomic Particles
Protons
• Protons are positively charged subatomic particles. The charge of a proton is
1e, which corresponds to approximately 1.602 × 10-19
• The mass of a proton is approximately 1.672 × 10-24
• Protons are over 1800 times heavier than electrons.
• The total number of protons in the atoms of an element is always equal to the
atomic number of the element.
Neutrons
• The mass of a neutron is almost the same as that of a proton, i.e., 1.674×10-24
• Neutrons are electrically neutral particles and carry no charge.
• Different isotopes of an element have the same number of protons but vary in
the number of neutrons present in their respective nuclei.
Electrons
• The charge of an electron is -1e, which approximates to -1.602 × 10-19
• The mass of an electron is approximately 9.1 × 10-31.
• Due to the relatively negligible mass of electrons, they are ignored when
calculating the mass of an atom.
Bohr’s Atomic Theory
Neils Bohr put forth his model of the atom in the year 1915. This is the most widely used
atomic model to describe the atomic structure of an element which is based
on Planck’s theory of quantization.
Postulates:
• The electrons inside atoms are placed in discrete orbits called “stationery
orbits”.
• The energy levels of these shells can be represented via quantum numbers.
• Electrons can jump to higher levels by absorbing energy and move to lower
energy levels by losing or emitting their energy.
• As long as an electron stays in its own stationery, there will be no absorption or
emission of energy.
• Electrons revolve around the nucleus in these stationary orbits only.
• The energy of the stationary orbits is quantised.
Limitations of Bohr’s Atomic Theory:
• Bohr’s atomic structure works only for single electron species such as H, He+,
Li2+, Be3+, ….
• When the emission spectrum of hydrogenwas observed under a more
accurate spectrometer, each line spectrum was seen to be a combination of a
number of smaller discrete lines.
• Both Stark and Zeeman’s effects couldn’t be explained using Bohr’s theory.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: Heisenberg stated that no two conjugate
physical quantities could be measured simultaneously with 100% accuracy. There will
always be some error or uncertainty in the measurement.
Drawback: Position and momentum are two such conjugate quantities that were
measured accurately by Bohr (theoretically).
Stark effect: Phenomenon of deflection of electrons in the presence of an electric
field.
Zeeman effect: Phenomenon of deflection of electrons in the presence of a magnetic
field.
Dual Nature of Matter
The electrons, which were treated to be particles, and the evidence of the
photoelectric effect show they also have a wave nature. This was proved by Thomas
Young with the help of his double-slit experiment.
De-Broglie concluded that since nature is symmetrical, so should light or any other
matter wave be.
Quantum Numbers
• Principal Quantum Number (n): It denotes the orbital number or shell number
of an electron.
• Azimuthal Quantum Numbers (l): It denotes the orbital (sub-orbit) of the
electron.
• Magnetic Quantum Number: It denotes the number of energy states in each
orbit.
• Spin Quantum number(s): It denotes the direction of spin, S = -½ =
Anticlockwise and ½ = Clockwise.
Electronic Configuration of an Atom
The electrons have to be filled in the s, p, d and f in accordance with the following rule.
1. Aufbau’s principle: The filling of electrons should take place in accordance with the
ascending order of energy of orbitals.
• Lower energy orbital should be filled first, and higher energy levels.
• The energy of orbital α(p + l) value it two orbitals have the same (n + l) value, E
αn
• Ascending order of energy 1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, 3d, . . .
2. Pauli’s exclusion principle: No two electrons can have all four quantum numbers to
be the same, or if two electrons have to be placed in an energy state, they should be
placed with opposite spies.
3. Hund’s rule of maximum multiplicity: In the case of filling degenerate (same
energy) orbitals, all the degenerate orbitals have to be singly filled first, and then, only
pairing has to happen.
