Hello, The electron configuration of silver (Ag) is[Kr]5s 1 4d 10 . According to
ID: 686278 • Letter: H
Question
Hello,The electron configuration of silver (Ag) is[Kr]5s14d10.
According to my chemistry textbook, Ag is paramagnetic (attractedby magnetic field) because it has an unpaired electron (the 5selectron). However, various sources on the Internet classify Ag asbeing diamagnetic (unattracted or slightly repelled by magneticfield).
For example, http://www.periodictable.com/Elements/047/data.html.
And from personal experience, I know that pure silver (99.9% fine)is not attracted by a regular handheld magnet and therefore behavesdiamagnetically.
Could someone please explain this seeming contradiction?
Thank you.
Explanation / Answer
Chemistry is all about contradictions - lots of factors could berelevant, and (depending on the enviroment) sometimes one is moreimportant than (swamps) the others.
Individual silver atoms (i.e., isolated, in the gas phase) areparamagnetic and deflect in a magntic field, due to the unpaired 5selectron. Some ions containing silver in solution may also beparamagnetic.
Silver atoms in the pure liquid and solid phase are bondedtogether via metallic bonding (metallic band from overlapping 5s,4d and 5p orbitals, all nearly equal in energy (degenerate). You can consider the interatomic (metallic) bond to be comprised of(highly delocalized) hybrid orbitals built from the overlapping 5s,4d, and (to a lessor extent) 5p atomic orbitals. As such, thevalence electrons of individual atoms occupy the hybrid orbitals(pairwise or at least with random spin orientations), andindividual electron spins effectively cancel out (removingtheir paramagnetic contribution). Moreover, the magneticproperites due to electron motion within the delocalized orbitalsthemselves is larger (and swamps) the (small) effect ofparamagnetism due to (unpaired) electron spinalone.
It appears that silver atoms within nanoparticles may beparamagnetic (align with a magnetic field), as may also be true onthe surface of thin layers of silver. In these cases, the"edge effect" (a significant fraction of the atoms being at theedge and therefore not "bonded" symmetrically to their neighbors)may outweigh the effect of metallic bonding orbitals.
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