16 neutrons

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For example, silicon has 14 protons and 14 neutrons. Its atomic number is 14 and its atomic mass is 28. The most common isotope of uranium has 92 protons and 146 neutrons. Its atomic number is 92 and its atomic mass is 238 (92 + 146)….2.1 Electrons, Protons, Neutrons, and Atoms.

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Yes and no. Yes in the sense that free neutrons exist without protons or electrons. But no in the sense that a neutron isn’t itself an element. Neutron counts affect the mass of atoms but their presence in atoms themselves do not change the atom of an element into another element.

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Atoms can have an electrical charge, positive or negative. This happens when an atom gains or loses electrons. The number of protons never changes in an atom. More electrons means a negative charge and fewer means a positive charge.

The only two ways by which atoms lose protons is through radioactive decay and nuclear fission. Both processes will only occur in atoms that have unstable nuclei. It is well known that radioactively occurs naturally and spontaneously.

Is there an atom that does not have neutrons? There is only one stable atom that does not have neutrons. It is an isotope of the element hydrogen called protium. Protium, which contains a single proton and a single electron, is the simplest atom.

So an atom can’t have no electrons as it, by definition has protons and to be neutral must have electrons. You can have an ion, such as a hydrogen ion (you might call it a proton).

A neutron has no net charge because the charge of the quarks that make up the neutron balance each other out.

High on this list are the masses of subatomic particles. Dozens of particles are known to physicists, but the most familiar are the constituents of atoms: electrons, protons and neutrons. The neutron is very slightly heavier than the proton, by about 0.1%, or 1.00137841887 according to the best measurements.

Explanation: If an atom has the same number of protons and neutrons, it will have a neutral charge, i.e. no charge at all… An example would be carbon-12. Since it has the same number of protons and electrons, the total charge is 6−6=0 .

Neutrons are the particles in an atom that have a neutral charge. They aren’t positive like protons. They aren’t negative like electrons.

Hydrogen does not contain neutron, because its nucleus is smallest in size which cannot accommodate any heavier neutron. It also makes hydrogen atom unstable in nature.

An atom is stable if the forces among the particles that makeup the nucleus are balanced. An atom is unstable (radioactive) if these forces are unbalanced; if the nucleus has an excess of internal energy. Instability of an atom’s nucleus may result from an excess of either neutrons or protons.

PS: Neutrons create some “space” between protons in the nucleus so that the protons’ positive charges do not overcome the strong force and blow the nuclus apart. Without neutrons there could be no element other than hydrogen.

No, free neurton is not a stable particle. Its mean life is about 1000 second. It decays into a proton, an electron and an antineutrino.

Neutrons are required for the stability of nuclei, with the exception of the single-proton hydrogen nucleus. Neutrons are produced copiously in nuclear fission and fusion. They are a primary contributor to the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements within stars through fission, fusion, and neutron capture processes.

In unstable nuclei the strong nuclear forces do not generate enough binding energy to hold the nucleus together permanently. Too many neutrons or protons upset this balance disrupting the binding energy from the strong nuclear forces making the nucleus unstable.

To the best of our understanding, the proton is a truly stable particle, and has never been observed to decay. Because of the various conservation laws of particle physics, a proton can only decay into lighter particles than itself. It cannot decay into a neutron or any other combination of three quarks.

Mononeutron: An isolated neutron undergoes beta decay with a mean lifetime of approximately 15 minutes (half-life of approximately 10 minutes), becoming a proton (the nucleus of hydrogen), an electron and an antineutrino. Its existence has been proven to be relevant for nuclear structure of exotic nuclei.