The total amount of energy always stays the same because of the law of conservation of energy, meaning that there is always the same amount of energy, it just gets turned into different forms like potential energy, kinetic energy, sound, thermal, etc.
Their difference lies in the prefix used before each root word, atom. The diatomic molecules are composed only of 2 atoms such as that of the diatomic elements: H2, O2, N2, Cl2, etc. On the other hand, polyatomic molecules are made up of three or mole atoms such as NH4+, H2SO4, etc.
