Give reasons for the following :
i) Metals have tendency to form cations.
ii) Non - metals have a tendency to gain electrons.
1. Because, metals are electropositive in nature, i.e. they have less than four electrons in their outermost valence orbital, so that they can loose them to get the stable octet configuration like the near most noble gas atom.
Hence, they loose their electrons to get stable noble gas like configuration and so the no. of protons increases and they get a positive charge and called as the cations (+ve ions).
2. Non- metals are electronegative in nature, i.e. the outermost shell have more than four electrons so that, they could receive electrons to complete their octets and get a stable noble gas like configuration.
So, they gain the electrons from other metals.