Considering volume of atom , what radius

[Karimspencer]

do you consider Covalent radius, Van der Waals radius or atomic radius?

 

[cgk]

Atoms don't have a strict radius or volume. Technically each atom extends through the whole universe. Now what do you use when you need an estimate for a volume? The choice is up to you, what works best depends on what you want to use the volume for.

Note also that the quantities you cite (covalent radius, vdW radius etc) are also not strictly defined.

 

[Karimspencer]

oh ok, so do you think the right way to find the volume of the atom is to find the average of the covalent radius, vdw radius and atomic radius?

 

[cgk]

oh ok, so do you think the right way to find the volume of the atom is to find the average of the covalent radius, vdw radius and atomic radius?

I said nothing even remotely suggesting this. There is no "right" way to "find" the volume of an atom, because it does not have one. Even if there was a right way, just averaging random unrelated quantities without any reason to so would most certainly not be it.

 

[Karimspencer]

Oh ok...

 

[Drakkith]

Perhaps this article will help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius
There is a chart at the bottom with the calculated radius of each element. I don't know what they based their calculations off of, but I'm sure you could either use those values or look at the references for more information.

 

[Reptillian]

I'd just use the Bohr radius depending on the calculation.

 

[Karimspencer]

Thanks Drakkith , this chart helps a lot for my research...