Thursday, February 3, 2011

What is ionization energy?

Ionization energy can be thought of as the energy needed to make an ion from an atom. In more technical terms, it is the amount of energy required to remove an electron from a neutral atom. Since more than 1 electron can be removed from an atom of a large number of elements, we denote the ionization energy as the first ionization energy, second ionization energy, etc. 


There is a noticeable trend in the ionization energies of elements as we move across a period or down a group, in the periodic table of elements. As we move across a period, the ionization energy increases, since the nuclear pull on the outermost electrons increases. The ionization energy decreases as we go down a group, due to shielding by inner electrons and increase in distance between the nucleus and the outermost electrons.

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