What Happens When You Add More Electrons to a Hydrogen Atom?

[avalanchesj]

So I was watching TV and I got to thinking. If a hydrogen atom has 1 proton and 1 electron... What element would you make if, instead of adding protons and nutron to the nucleus, you were to somehow add additional electrons to the orbitals of that single proton? Is it even possible and what effect would it have?

 

[Bystander]

One proton plus two electrons is a hydride anion.

 

[mfb]

The element is, by definition, given by the number of protons. The number of electrons determines which type of ion (or neutral atom) you have.

 

[DLieberman]

The properties in general, would be that H- (the hydride anion, as noted above) would chemically bind with cations such as Li+, creating chemical compounds such as Lithium Hydride (LiH), which interestingly is the lightest ionic compound. Please note that free lithium does not occur in nature so the reaction isn't quite this trivial:

2 Li + H₂ -> 2 LiH​

in which each lithium atom donates an electron to the corresponding hydrogen atom, becoming (for descriptive purposes):

2( Li⁺ + H^- )​

which are ionically bonded as 2 LiH.
Hope this is helpful!