{"id":236679,"date":"2025-06-16T12:18:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T12:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/?p=236679"},"modified":"2025-06-16T12:18:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T12:18:23","slug":"what-is-the-electron-configuration-of-the-cu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/16\/what-is-the-electron-configuration-of-the-cu\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the electron configuration of the Cu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the electron configuration of the Cu?\u00b9 ion? -[Ar]4s\u00b23d\u00b9? -[Ar]3d\u00b9? -[Ar]4s\u00b23d? -[Ar]4d? -[Ar]4s\u00b23d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-583.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-236680\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">The Correct Answer and Explanation is:<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Correct Answer: [Ar] 3d\u00b9\u2070<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To understand this, first consider the electron configuration of a <strong>neutral copper (Cu) atom<\/strong>, which has an atomic number of 29. This means it has 29 electrons. The expected configuration by Aufbau principle would be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Ar] 4s\u00b2 3d\u2079<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, copper is an exception due to the extra stability provided by a <strong>fully-filled d-subshell<\/strong>. So, one electron from the 4s orbital is promoted to the 3d orbital, giving copper the actual ground-state configuration:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Ar] 4s\u00b9 3d\u00b9\u2070<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When copper loses one electron to form the <strong>Cu\u207a\u00b9 ion<\/strong>, it loses the electron from the <strong>4s orbital<\/strong> first because the 4s orbital is <strong>higher in energy<\/strong> than the 3d orbital <strong>after filling<\/strong>. Thus, removing one electron from 4s\u00b9 results in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Ar] 3d\u00b9\u2070<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This configuration is particularly stable because a completely filled d-subshell (with 10 electrons) is energetically favorable. It helps explain why Cu\u207a is a commonly found oxidation state for copper in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The incorrect options in the question include configurations such as <strong>[Ar] 4s\u00b2 3d\u00b9\u2070<\/strong> or <strong>[Ar] 4s\u00b2 3d\u2077<\/strong>, which either violate the actual known configuration of copper or imply incorrect electron loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In summary, when copper loses one electron to become Cu\u207a\u00b9, it does so from the 4s orbital, leaving behind a stable 3d\u00b9\u2070 configuration. Therefore, the most accurate electron configuration of the Cu\u207a\u00b9 ion is <strong>[Ar] 3d\u00b9\u2070<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/learnexams-banner8-705.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-236681\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the electron configuration of the Cu?\u00b9 ion? -[Ar]4s\u00b23d\u00b9? -[Ar]3d\u00b9? -[Ar]4s\u00b23d? -[Ar]4d? -[Ar]4s\u00b23d? The Correct Answer and Explanation is: Correct Answer: [Ar] 3d\u00b9\u2070 To understand this, first consider the electron configuration of a neutral copper (Cu) atom, which has an atomic number of 29. This means it has 29 electrons. The expected configuration by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exams-certification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}