Ionization Energy
We can also analyze other data sources to get a complete model of an atom. We can obtain data from ionization energy. Ionization energy is the amount of energy required to remove the loosely bound electrons, valence electrons, from a gaseous atom to form a cation. Ionization energy data gives us information on nuclear charge and colombic effects, and the rationale of some chemical behaviors of elements within the columns of a periodic table. Nuclear charge is the total charge of all protons, the coulombic effects is the attractions between the positive and negative charges. Periodic tables are given in textbook, however, mosts data isn't given because they can be too “complex” which does not help us students understand what science really is. However, if we go deeper into the concept of ionization energy, we can learn more on electron shells and valence electrons by showing tables of successive energy. Based on the tables we saw, removing a the second electron from an atom requires a lot more energy than removing the first electron. This applies to all atoms regardless of which orbital it is in. How is this possible? When you pull an electron from an ion that is positively charged, you need more energy to
…show more content…
So, “any frequency of light that capable of removing electrons from the 1st shell can electrons from any of the other shells”. Based off of that, the second energy level electrons are much easier to remove and because of this, they are going to exit the electron cloud with a much greater kinetic energy. This concept is very important to photoelectron spectroscopy. If electrons from different, far energy levels leave with greater kinetic energy, we can measure the kinetic energy and then figure out how much energy is required to remove that specific electron from the atom