Hydrogen Valence Electrons (And How to Find them?)

So you have seen the above image by now, right?

Awesome! You can see that hydrogen has 1 valence electron.

But how can you say that Hydrogen has 1 valence electron
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How can you find this valence electron?

Let’s discuss this in short.

Hydrogen has 1 valence electron because there is 1 electron present in the outermost shell of the Hydrogen (H) atom.

Now let’s see how you can easily find the valence electrons of Hydrogen atom (H).

If you don’t want to read the texts, then you can also watch this video.

How to find the Valence Electrons? (2 Methods)

In order to find the valence electrons of Hydrogen atom (H), you can use two methods.

Method 1: From the Periodic Table

To find out the valence electrons of Hydrogen, you have to see the position of hydrogen in the periodic table.

More specifically, you have to see the group wise position of Hydrogen element in the periodic table.

From the above image, you can see that the Hydrogen (H) is present in the group 1 of periodic table.
(Note: Group 1 is also called group 1A).

So, as the hydrogen element is present in group 1, it has 1 valence electron.

In this way, by knowing the position of hydrogen element in periodic table, you can easily find its valence electrons.

Now let’s see another method for finding the number of valence electrons in hydrogen.

Method 2: From the Electron Configuration

If you want to find the valence electrons of hydrogen from its electron configuration, then you should know its electron configuration first.

Now there are many methods to write the electron configurations, but here I will show you the easiest method, i.e by using Aufbau principle.

Aufbau principle: The Aufbau principle simply states that the orbitals with the lower energy are filled first and then the orbitals with higher energy levels are filled.

According to the Aufbau principle, the orbitals are filled in the following order:
1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, 3d, 4p, 5s, 4d, 5p, 6s, 4f, 5d, 6p, 7s, 5f, 6d, 7p, and so on.

Also the maximum number of electrons that can be accommodated in s, p, d & f orbitals are mentioned in the below table.

Orbitals	Maximum capacity of electrons [1]
s	2
p	6
d	10
f	14

Now let’s try to find the electron configuration of Hydrogen by using the Aufbau principle.

Electron Configuration of Hydrogen:

Follow the steps mentioned below to get the electron configuration of Hydrogen.

• To write the electron configuration of hydrogen, we should first know the total number of electrons present in a hydrogen atom.
• The hydrogen atom has a total of 1 electron because its atomic number is 1 and it is a neutral atom. ^[2]
• Now we have to fill this 1 electron in the atomic orbitals according to the Aufbau principle.
• According to the Aufbau principle, the electrons will be filled first in 1s orbital.
• So in the hydrogen atom, the electron will be filled in s-orbital.
• So the electron configuration of the hydrogen atom is 1s¹. ^[3]

Now in this electron configuration of hydrogen, we have to see the number of electrons present in the highest energy level.

You can see in the electron configuration of hydrogen (1s¹) that the highest energy level is 1. And the total number of electrons present in this energy level is also 1.

So by knowing the electron configuration, we have found that the Hydrogen has 1 valence electron.

I hope you have understood the methods of finding the valence electrons in hydrogen. 

See more related topics for your practice;
Helium Valence Electrons
Lithium Valence Electrons
Beryllium Valence Electrons
Sodium Valence Electrons
Magnesium Valence Electrons