What does it meand when you nedd to figure out the Electron, neutron and Proton that shows as 38/88 Sr +2?

Question

What does the 2 mean?

Answer 1

(I do not know your level of chemistry education, so please forgive me if I seem to elementary for you.) An atom is composed of three subatomic particals: protons are positive and located in the nucleus, neutrons have no charge and are located in the nucleus, and electrons have a negative chage and are orbiting around the nucleus in some weird-shaped regions. Chemists like to shorten the notation of an element into symbols. The symbol for the strontium ion you have used as an example would be:
88 2+
Sr
38
The "88" refers to the mass of the nucleus. Since the nucleus contains only protons and neutrons (each has a mass of "1"), this tells us that there are a total of 88 protons and neutrons in the nucleus. The "38" refers to the atomic number of the atom. The atomic number is defined as the number of protons found in the nucleus. So now we know that there are 38 protons! One subatomic partical is accounted for! We also know that there are a total of 88 protons plus neutrons in the nucleus. If we reason this out we see that 88 (protons+neutrons) - 38 (protons) leaves us with 50 neutrons in the nucleus. Yea! Now two subatomic particals are finished! The last thing we do is to determine the number of electrons in this atom (which is actually called and ION since it carries an electric charge). In an atom the number of electrons (negative) is always equal to the number of protons (positive). In this example we have an ion. Ions do not have equal numbers of protons and electrons so we must calculate a little more. A strontium atom would have 38 protons (its atomic number) and 38 electrons. In this example we have 38 protons (each with a 1+ charge) for a total of 38+. We know there are really only 2+ for this ion. How many negative electrons must be present to give a charge of 2+ ? This is simple, too. All we do to determine the number of electrons orbiting this ion is to subtract the charge on the ion from the total nuclear charge. In other words: +38 - +2 = 36 . Therefore there are 36 electrons in this ion. What if the ion had a negative charge? Lets use good old Oxygen as an example. The atomic number of Oxygen is 8 (8+ nuclear charge due to 8 protons). The charge on an Oxygen ion is 2- . Lets try to subtract and see if we get the correct number of electrons in an Oxygen ion:
+8 - (-2) = ? Remember your negative signs!! +8 + 2 = 10 . This is correct. There are 10 electrons in an Oxygen ion.

Answer 2

The atomic number of strontium is 38 which means that it contains 38 protons and 38 electrons in its neutral state. Sr +2 shows that two electrons are removed from the metal which gives it two positive charges. 88 represents the mass number which is the sum of the proton number and neutron number.
So Sr +2 contains
38 protons, 36 electrons and
88-38 = 50 neutrons.

Answer 3

The +2 is the charge of the Strontium Ion. (Hint - This also means that you will have 2 less electrons than in elemental Strontium) ;) The 38 is the atomic number - it tells how many protons and electrons are in elemental Strontium. 88 is the atomic mass of Strontium. To find the number of neutrons you subtract the atomic number from the mass number.

So 88-38=50 neutrons

Hope this helped!