Practically everyone has seen an advertisement for the so-called "Chizhevsky chandelier", from which negative ions in the air increase quantitatively. However, after school, not everyone remembers exactly the very definition of the concept. Ions are charged particles that have lost their neutrality characteristic of normal atoms. And now a little more.
"Wrong" atoms
As you know, the number in the periodic table of the great Mendeleev is associated with the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. Why not electrons? Because the number and completeness of electrons, although it affects the properties of an atom, does not determine its fundamental properties associated with the nucleus. There may not be enough electrons, or there may be too many. Ions are just atoms with the “wrong” number of electrons. Moreover, paradoxically, those with a lack of electrons are called positive, and an excess is called negative.
A little about names
How do ions form? This is a simple question - there are only two ways of education. Either chemical or physical. The result is a positive ion, whichoften called a cation, and negative, respectively, an anion. A single atom or a whole molecule can have a deficiency or excess charge, which is also considered an ion of a special polyatomic type.
Striving for stability
If there is an ionization of a medium, for example, a gas, then there are quantitatively proportional ratios of electrons and positive ions in it. But such a phenomenon is rare (during a thunderstorm, near a flame), the gas in such an altered state does not exist for long. Therefore, in general, reactive air ions close to the ground are rare. Gas is a very rapidly changing medium. As soon as the action of ionizing factors ceases, the ions meet each other and again become neutral atoms. This is their normal state.
Aggressive liquid
Ions can be contained in water in large quantities. The fact is that water molecules are particles in which the electric charge is distributed unevenly throughout the molecule, they are dipoles that have a positive charge on one side and a negative charge on the other.
And when a soluble substance appears in water, water molecules with their poles electrically affect the added substance, ionizing it. A good example is seawater, where many substances exist in the form of ions. This has been known to people for a long time. There are a lot of ions in the atmosphere above a certain point, this shell is called the ionosphere. solar radiation destroysstable atoms and molecules. Particles in an ionized state can impart unusual colors to all matter. An example is the bright unusual colors of gemstones.
Ions are the basis of life, because the basic process of obtaining energy from ATP is impossible without the creation of electrically unstable particles, cellular respiration itself is based on the interactions of ions and many chemical processes catalyzed by enzymes, occurs only due to ionization. It is not surprising that some substances in this state are taken by mouth. The classic example is beneficial silver ions.
