Periodicity

● What trend in atomic radius can you see as you move across a period?
○ Atomic radius gets slightly smaller. This is because as the nucleus of the atom
gains more protons, it has a stronger positive charge. This creates a strong
attraction between protons and electrons and causes the electrons to orbit
slightly closer to the nucleus.
● What trend in atomic radius can you see as you move down a group?
○ Atomic radius increases. This is because as you move down a group, the
atoms gain more shells of electrons, hence the atomic radius increases.
● What trend in ionisation energy can you see as you move across a period?
○ It increases. This is because more energy is required to knock electrons off an
atom with many electrons in its outer shell, rather than just 1 or 2.
● What trend in ionisation energy can you see as you move down a group?
○ It decreases. This is because the energy required to knock off a single electron
decreases due to the fact that the outer electrons are further away from the
nucleus, so they take less energy to be knocked off.

● Periodicity in the physical and chemical properties of the elements include:

○ Melting point and physical state
○ Atomic radius
○ Ionization energy
■ The first ionisation energy refers of the amount of energy required to
remove an electron from a neutral gaseous state of that element
■ Any element can become a gas when it reaches its boiling point and
then bombarded with a high-energy beam of electrons in a vacuum.
■ Gaseous state refers to the atom being by itself, not bonded to another's
atom.
 ■ Groups 1 elements (alkali metals) have the lowest first ionization
energies, group 18 elements (noble gases) have the largest.
■ First ionisation energy is closely related to atomic radius.
● As atomic radius increases, first ionisation energy decreases.
(inverse relationship)
● The stronger the electrostatic attraction between the electrons
and the nucleus, the smaller the radius, and the more difficult it
is to remove an electron.
○ Electronegativity
■ Electronegativity is the ability/tendency of an atom to attract bonding
electrons.
■ Higher electronegativity means stronger attraction to bonding
electrons. E.g Chlorine has very high electronegativity because it has a
strong attraction to bonding electrons.
■ The periodic table shows a trend in electronegativity of elements.
■ Electronegativity can also be explained using atomic radius:
● As atoms become smaller over a period, the nuclei is more able
to attract extra electrons.
● As atoms become larger down a group, outer electrons are
more shielded from the nucleus, so it is less able to attract
additional electrons.
● Smaller elements attract more bonding electrons hence have
higher electronegativity
● Positive charge in the nucleus is shield by the many electrons in
the inner shells, making it harder to attract an electron to the
outer shell, therefore lower electronegativity
● Noble gases do NOT have electronegativity as because they
have a full outer shell already, they don’t want to attract any
more.
○ Reactivity with water
■ All groups 1 (alkali metals) elements react with water, and reaction
intensity increases going down the group.
■ Group 2 (alkaline earth metals) elements have a lower reactivity than
group 1 elements, but reactivity also increases going down the group.
■ No other elements react with cold water, although some can react with
steam.
■ Reactivity with water shows some correlation with atomic radius:
● As radius increases and electrostatic attraction between the
nucleus and outer-electrons decreases, atoms more readily give
up an electron and react with water.
○ Chemical reactivity
■ Chemical reactivity for metals generally follows the same pattern as
their reactivity with water
■ For non-metals, chemical reactivity decreases to the left of the table
(halogens are most reactive) and decreases down the group.
■ Reactivity decreases down the group with the halogens.