Question #d2dfd

1 Answer
Apr 28, 2015

A fluorine atom has 4 pairs of electrons + 1 unpaired electron.

Fluorine is located in period 2, group 17 of the periodic table, and has an atomic number equal to 9. This means that a neutral fluorine atom will have 9 electrons surrounding its nucleus.

Its electron configuration looks like this

http://www.mikeblaber.org/oldwine/chm1045/notes/Geometry/Hybrid/Geom05.htm

As you can see, 8 of the 9 electrons fluorine has are paired, which means that a neutral fluorine atom has 4 unpaired electrons.