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Fluorine Facts: The Element
Fluorine Facts: The element Fluorine contains 9 protons in its nucleus. It is extremely reactive in both its neutral state and in compounds with other elements. It is the most reactive of all elements.
Fluorine has only one stable isotope, which is 19-Fluorine. This isotope contains 9 protons and 10 neutrons as shown in the bohr-style atom diagram to the right. Other isotopes with neutron numbers ranging from 5 to 22 have been discovered, but all except 19-Fluorine are unstable and radioactive. The most stable is 18-Fluorine with a half life of just under two hours.
The Electron Structure of Fluorine
As with other elements in this second row of the Periodic Table, Fluorine has 2 shells of electrons. The first shell contains only two electrons resulting in the second, outer shell containing 7 electrons. This gives us the electron dot diagram for fluorine as shown to the left, indicating that it needs just one more electron to fill its outer shell.We can see the detail of the subshell electron structure of Fluorine by putting 9 electrons into the subshell filling pattern which gives us a configuration of 1s2 2s2 2p5. A visual representation of this subshell layering is shown below:

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