Organic Chemistry

6 CHAPTER 1 Electronic Structure and Bonding • Acids and Bases

addition to their sand porbitals—also contain five degenerate datomic orbitals, and

the fourth and higher shells also contain seven degenerate atomic orbitals. Because

a maximum of two electrons can coexist in an atomic orbital (see the Pauli exclusion

principle, below), the first shell, with only one atomic orbital, can contain no more

than two electrons. The second shell, with four atomic orbitals—one sand three p—

can have a total of eight electrons. Eighteen electrons can occupy the nine atomic

orbitals—one s, three p, and five d—of the third shell, and 32 electrons can occupy the

16 atomic orbitals of the fourth shell. In studying organic chemistry, we will be con-

cerned primarily with atoms that have electrons only in the first and second shells.

The ground-state electronic configurationof an atom describes the orbitals occu-

pied by the atom’s electrons when they are all in the available orbitals with the lowest en-

ergy. If energy is applied to an atom in the ground state, one or more electrons can jump

into a higher energy orbital. The atom then would be in an excited-state electronic

configuration. The ground-state electronic configurations of the 11 smallest atoms are

shown in Table 1.2. (Each arrow—whether pointing up or down—represents one elec-

tron.) The following principles are used to determine which orbitals electrons occupy:

1. The aufbau principle(aufbauis German for “building up”) tells us the first
   thing we need to know to be able to assign electrons to the various atomic or-
   bitals. According to this principle, an electron always goes into the available or-
   bital with the lowest energy. The relative energies of the atomic orbitals are as
   follows:

Because a 1satomic orbital is closer to the nucleus, it is lower in energy than a

2 satomic orbital, which is lower in energy—and is closer to the nucleus—than a

3 satomic orbital. Comparing atomic orbitals in the same shell, we see that an s

atomic orbital is lower in energy than a patomic orbital, and a patomic orbital is

lower in energy than a datomic orbital.

2. The Pauli exclusion principlestates that (a) no more than two electrons can oc-
   cupy each atomic orbital, and (b) the two electrons must be of opposite spin. It is
   called an exclusion principle because it states that only so many electrons can
   occupy any particular shell. Notice in Table 1.2 that spin in one direction is des-
   ignated by an upward-pointing arrow, and spin in the opposite direction by a
   downward-pointing arrow.

6 s 64 f 65 d 66 p 67 s 65 f

1 s 62 s 62 p 63 s 63 p 64 s 63 d 64 p 65 s 64 d 65 p 6

f

As a teenager, Austrian Wolfgang
Pauli (1900–1958)wrote articles on
relativity that caught the attention of
Albert Einstein. Pauli went on to
teach physics at the University of
Hamburg and at the Zurich Institute
of Technology. When World War II
broke out, he immigrated to the Unit-
ed States, where he joined the Insti-
tute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

TABLE 1.2 The Ground-State Electronic Configurations of the Smallest Atoms

Name of

element

Atomic

Atom number 1 s 2 s 2 px 2 py 2 pz 3 s

H Hydrogen 1

He Helium 2

Li Lithium 3

Be Beryllium 4

B Boron 5

C Carbon 6

N Nitrogen 7

O Oxygen 8

F Fluorine 9

Ne Neon 10

Na Sodium 11