Why do most metals tend to form cations?
Metals tend to form cations because of their valence electrons. If you look most metals have less than 4 valence electrons, this means they have a choice, gain quite a few electrons or loose a few. As you can guess they will tend to loose electrons and become more positive. They do this in order to reach a “noble-gas configuration” that is have a full outer valence shell. Oxygen is found as O2 because oxygen itself would prefer to have a full outer valence shell as well. O therefore will bond with another O atom forming a double bond, this allows both oxygen atoms to have full outer-valence shells. Iodine can gain 1 electron Strontium can loose 2 electrons Nitrogen can gain 3 electrons Krypton is already a noble gas, it will not need to do anything! Electron Configurations: 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 (The same as Argon [Ar]) 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 3s2 3d10 4p6 (The same as Krypton [Kr]) 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 (The same as Argon [Ar] again) 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 3s2 3d10 4p6 (The same as Krypton [Kr]
