Practice question · True or false
A sodium cation is smaller than a neutral sodium atom.
Hints
- What happens to the outermost shell when sodium loses its single valence electron?
- The entire third shell empties, leaving the compact neon core.
Show the answer
True
Why
True, sodium’s single electron is its whole outer shell, so is left with the much smaller neon core, and the unchanged nucleus holds those 10 electrons more tightly still.
Practise Periodic Properties
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