One evening last summer, as I strolled along the promenade in Limbe, a small, scenic port town in southwestern Cameroon, I was stopped by a well-dressed young man who greeted me warmly and took me by the hand.
Phosphorus has 3 shells. The outer shell contains 5 electrons. The electronic configuration is :- <br /> 1s2, 2s2, 2p6, 3s2, 3p3.
Shell 2 (2S & 2P) and Shell 3 (3S & 3P) each hold 8 electrons. After that, the next 2 hold 18 each, then the next 2 hold 32. So far, scientists havent discovered any elements that use more orbitals than this. As for how many shells the atom has, I already said that it has an infinite number of empty ones. But the number of full ones is probably closer to what youre looking for. For example, lets look at Calcium. Calcium has 20 electrons.