What is a charge in an atom?

Answer 1

An atom can either have a positive or negative charge, and a charged atom is called an ion.

If an atom loses an electron to another atom, it becomes a positive ion.

If an atom gains an electron, it becomes a negative ion.

Answer 2

Short Answer:

The total charge of an atom is the number of protons in the nucleus, minus the number of electrons around the nucleus. Normally, atoms have as many protons as electrons and the atom is neutral, otherwise, it is a negative ion with a charge of -1, -2, etc if it has extra electrons or +1, +2 etc if it is missing electrons and is a positive ion.

Explanation:

Atoms have a positively charged nucleus and a collection of negatively charged electrons around the nucleus. Because each proton in the nucleus has a positive charge of exactly the same size as the negative charge of an electron, when the normal atom has as many electrons as protons, the total charge of the atom is zero. It is a neutral atom.

If there is one more electron than than the number of protons, there is a net negative charge of -1. If the atom is missing an electron, the total charge is +1.

If an atom has one or more extra electrons, we say it is a negative ion and the total charge of the ion is -1 or -2 or "-" the number of extra electrons.

If an atom is one or more electrons, we say it is a positive ion and the total charge of the ion is +1 or +2 or "+" the number of missing electrons, i.e. the excess number of protons.

Total Charge = (number of protons) - (number of electrons).

Answer 3

An atom has a tiny positively charge core called the nucleus which contains all of the atom's positive charge and most of its mass (99%).

But the overall charge of an atom is zero.Atoms are made up of electrons, protons and neutrons. electrons have a charge of -1, neutrons are neutral and protons have a charge of +1. different atoms have different numbers of protons and neutrons and electrons, but in their normal state the number of electrons is equal to the number of protons, so the charge is neutral. An ion is an atom that has lost or gained electrons, resulting in a positive or negative charge.

Answer 4

0

The total atom should have no charge. The positive charge of the nucleus should be completely balanced by the charge of the electron cloud.

Answer 5

zero, or none because it's an atom; not an ion.

Answer 6

When an atom loses or gain an electron, it becomes charged either positively or negatively.

Answer 7

Zero, it is neutral. This is because there are equal number of protons and of electrons in this atom. The neutrons are, of course, of zero charge.

Answer 8

Zero because it's a negative charge