Question

How do you calculate the relative atomic mass of isotopes?

Answer 1

When two atoms of the same element have different numbers of neutrons and also have different masses. They are known as isotopes of that element.

Complete step by step answer:
- Isotopes generally occur naturally and so thus the percentage abundance of two isotopes can be calculated using the atomic mass and the average atomic masses. Atomic weight or atomic mass is the mass of an atom. The atomic mass is usually expressed in Dalton. The difference in isotopes is due to the difference in the number of neutrons, the isotopes differ in their atomic weight, density, atomic volume, melting and boiling point.
- The isotopes generally have the same physical and chemical properties and the atomic number of isotopes are also the same. This means that the isotopes have the same number of protons. The isotopes differ in their atomic weight and density etc.
- The relative atomic mass of an element is the weighted average mass of the atoms of the isotopes, because if there is much more of an isotope because if there is much more of one isotope then that will influence the average mass.

Additional Information : Electrons, protons and neutrons are the subatomic particles. Electrons are the subatomic particle which carries a negative charge, while protons are the subatomic particle with a positive charge and neutrons are the subatomic particle which has no charge. Protons and neutrons both are present in the nucleus of the atom whereas electrons revolve around the nucleus.

Note: If we talk about isobars, these are those elements which have the same mass number but different atomic number. Let’s take an example, argon and calcium both have the same mass number i.e. 20 but their atomic numbers are different i.e. 18 for argon and 20 for calcium.