Energy & Green Tech

Salt battery harvests osmotic energy where the river meets the sea

Estuaries—where freshwater rivers meet the salty sea—are great locations for birdwatching and kayaking. In these areas, waters containing different salt concentrations mix and may be sources of sustainable, "blue" osmotic ...

Energy & Green Tech

Storing and utilizing energy with innovative sulfur-based cathodes

Electric vehicles and portable electronic devices such as laptops and mobile phones are unthinkable without lithium-ion batteries. The problem is highly toxic materials such as cobalt are often used for the cathodes of these ...

Engineering

Extracting high-purity gold from electrical and electronic waste

Korea relies on imports for most of its metal resources, and in recent years, due to resource depletion and rising raw material prices, 'circular resources' that recycle waste metal resources have emerged. In response, SK ...

Energy & Green Tech

An ultralow-concentration electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries

Lithium salts make batteries powerful but expensive. An ultralow-concentration electrolyte based on the lithium salt LiDFOB may be a more economical and more sustainable alternative. Cells using these electrolytes and conventional ...

Ion

An ion is an atom or molecule where the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving it a net positive or negative electrical charge.

Since protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged, if there are more electrons than protons, the atom or molecule will be negatively charged. This is called an anion (pronounced /ˈænaɪən/; an-eye-on), from the Greek ἀνά (ana), meaning 'up'.

Conversely, if there are more protons than electrons, the atom or molecule will be positively charged. This is called a cation (pronounced /ˈkætaɪən/; cat-eye-on), from the Greek κατά (kata), meaning 'down'.

An ion consisting of a single atom is called a monatomic ion. If it consists of two or more atoms, it is called a polyatomic ion. Polyatomic ions containing oxygen, such as carbonate and sulfate, are called oxyanions.

When writing the chemical formula for an ion, its charge is written as a superscript '+' or '−' following a number indicating the difference between the number of protons and the number of electrons. The number is omitted if it is equal to 1. For example, the sodium cation is written as Na+, the '+' indicating that it has one less electron than it has protons. The sulfate anion is written as SO42−, the '2−' indicating that it has two more electrons than it has protons.

If an ion contains unpaired electrons, it is called a radical ion. Just like neutral radicals, radical ions are very reactive.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA