Question

Every inert gas atom
A) Has a saturated outermost shell
B) Has one electron in outermost shell
C) Has eight electrons in outermost shell
D) Has two electrons in outermost shell

Answer 1

Hint: Inert gases have noble gas electronic configurations. It has a completely filled valence shell. Its general valence shell electronic configuration of an inert gas element is $$n{s}^{2}n{p}^6$$.

Complete Step by Step Answer:
The general valence shell electronic configuration of inert gas elements is $$n{s}^{2}n{p}^6$$.Thus it contains two electrons in the ns subshell and six in the np subshell. Thus it does not need any further electrons and remains saturated.

The elements with noble gas configuration are highly stable due to the filled valence shell. This is inert and does not react easily. Again these elements have ionisation energy as it requires very high energy to remove an electron.

Due to the inert nature of the noble gas elements these are widely used to create the inert atmosphere in various chemical synthesis. Among the inert gas elements, randon is the radioactive element. Helium is the most important element and it is considered as an alpha particle. Thus we can write that the inert gases are monatomic.
Thus the correct option is A.

Note: The inert gases are actually the noble gases. This resides in the group 18 of modern periodic table. The inert gas elements are helium, neon, argon, xenon, radon and krypton. All these elements are monatomic. As these elements are totally unreactive so, they exist as monatomic element.