Answer: A chemical element’s atomic number is its position in the periodic system, which places the atoms in ascending order of the number of protons in their nuclei. As a result, the atomic number is also determined by the number of protons, which is always equal to the number of electrons in an atom. The atomic number of iron is 26 because an iron atom has 26 protons in its centre. They are placed in a tabular format , with rows representing periods and columns representing groups.
The order of the element’s ascending atomic numbers is left to right and top to bottom. Thus,
- The valence electron configuration of elements belonging to the same group will be identical, resulting in identical chemical characteristics.
- In contrast, valence electrons in the same period will be arranged in ascending order. As a result, there are more energy sublevels per energy level as the atom’s energy level rises.