Question

1)What is an isotope?
2) how do isotopes differ from their parent element?
3) how do you determine the abundance of each isotope

Answer 1

1) An isotope is an atom/ion with the same atomic number (number of protons), but different mass number (number of protons and neutrons). Basically, an isotope is an atom/element with differing numbers of neutrons.

Some elements have only one stable arrangement of protons and neutrons - these are known as monoisotopic elements.

2) Isotopes of the same element differ from one another because they each have a different number of neutrons. Since this is the case, it means they also have different atomic masses.

Isotopes of the same element differ from one another because they each have a different number of neutrons.

3) If you're given the mass of each isotope of an element, and the average atomic mass, you can calculate the percent (%) abundance of each isotope. Let "x" be one of the abundances, and the other abundance is "1-x" ... then solve the equation using basic algebra.