The element with the abbreviated electron configuration Ne 3s²3p⁵ is chlorine (Cl).
To understand this, let’s break down the electron configuration. The abbreviation starts with “Ne,” which refers to neon, indicating that neon’s electron configuration is fully accounted for. Neon has 10 electrons, and its electron configuration is 1s² 2s² 2p⁶. Following neon’s configuration, we see “3s²3p⁵”. This means that there are 2 electrons in the 3s subshell and 5 electrons in the 3p subshell.
Now, if we add this to the 10 electrons from neon, we have:
- 10 (from Ne) + 2 (from 3s²) + 5 (from 3p⁵) = 17 electrons.
Since the number of electrons determines the element’s identity and chlorine has 17 electrons, we conclude that this configuration corresponds to chlorine, which is located in group 17 (the halogens) of the periodic table.