Answer to Question #85156 in General Chemistry for Kenzie

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.