What is the electron configuration of oxygen?
Question
What is the electron configuration of oxygen?
Solution
The electron configuration of an oxygen atom is 1s² 2s² 2p⁴. Here's how we get to that:
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The atomic number of oxygen is 8, which means an oxygen atom has 8 electrons.
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According to the Aufbau principle, electrons fill the lowest energy levels first. So, the first two electrons go into the 1s orbital. We denote this as 1s².
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The next two electrons go into the 2s orbital. Now we have 1s² 2s².
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The remaining 4 electrons go into the 2p orbital. So, the final electron configuration of oxygen is 1s² 2s² 2p⁴.
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