Periodic Table and Successive Ionisation

The Periodic Table as the arrangement of elements:

Atomic number

Reading from left to right, the elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic number. Each
successive element has atoms with one extra proton - H 1. He 2, Li 3, Be 4, and so on.

Periods and periodicity

The elements are arranged in horizontal rows called periods. The number of the period gives the
number of the highest energy electron shell in an element's atoms.

Groups

The elements are arranged in vertical columns called groups. Each element in a group has atoms
with the same number of outer-shell electrons and similar properties.

electron structure:

Trend across a period

Each period starts with an electron in a new highest energy shell.

 Across Period 2, the 2s sub-shell fills with two electrons, followed by the 2p sub-shell with six
electrons.
 Across Period 3, the same pattern of filling is repeated for the 3s and 3p sub-shells.
 Across Period 4, although the 3d sub-shell is involved, the highest shell number is n = 4.
From the n = 4 shell, only the 4s and 4p sub-shells are occupied.

For each period, the s- and p-sub-shells are filled in the same way - a periodic pattern.

first ionisation energy

Ionisation energy measures how easily an atom loses electrons to form positive ions.

The first ionisation energy is the energy required to remove one electron from each atom in one
mole of gaseous atoms of an element to form one mole of gaseous 1+ ions.

Successive ionisation energies allow predictions to be made about:

 the number of electrons in the outer shell

 the group of the element in the periodic table
 the identity of an element.

The ionisation energies shown in Table 1 steadily increase but then there is a large increase between
the third and fourth ionisation energies. This shows that the fourth electron is being removed from
an inner shell. Therefore there are three electrons in the outer shell and the element must be in
Group 13 (3). Since it is in Period 3, the element must be aluminium.