IONIZATION

ENTHALPY
Amen Navas 12-C
IMPORTANT POINTS
• The energy required to remove the most loosely bound electron from the isolated gaseous
atoms to produce a cation (+ve charge) is called ionization enthalpy.
• Ionization enthalpy increases along each series of transition elements from left to right.
• The filling of inner d orbitals also contributes to the increase in ionization enthalpy.
• This results in a slower decrease in atomic radii which leads to the slight increase in
ionization energies in 3d series.
• The increase in nuclear charge leads to a stronger attraction between the nucleus and the
outermost electrons and this makes it more difficult to remove an electron, hence the
increase in ionization enthalpy.
• The three terms which are responsible for the IE are, attraction of each e towards nucleus,
repulsion b/w the e & exchange energy.
• Exchange energy is responsible for the stabilization of the energy state, the loss of the
exchange energy leads to the increasing of the stability which makes ionization more
difficult.
• There is no exchange energy in 6d orbital so, Fe 2+ (6d) is lower than Mn2+ (3d5)
• In third IE they show greater difficulty in the removal of e from d5 (Mn 2+) and d10 (Zn2+)
so they generally have quite high IE.
• The ionization enthalpy is an important property in reactivity of elements by measuring of
the energy required to remove an electron from an atom.
• The ionization enthalpy generally decreases down a group because the outermost electrons
are farther from the nucleus.