What is the primary reason for the high reactivity of alkali metals?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
What is the primary reason for the high reactivity of alkali metals?
High electronegativity
Low ionization energy
High atomic radius
Presence of d-orbitals
Alkali metals have low ionization energy, which contributes to their high reactivity.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: What is the primary reason for the high reactivity of alkali metals?
Solution: Alkali metals have low ionization energy, which contributes to their high reactivity.
Steps: 5
Step 1: Understand what alkali metals are. They are the elements in Group 1 of the periodic table, like lithium, sodium, and potassium.
Step 2: Learn about ionization energy. This is the energy needed to remove an electron from an atom.
Step 3: Realize that alkali metals have low ionization energy. This means it takes very little energy to remove their outermost electron.
Step 4: Recognize that when an alkali metal loses its outer electron, it becomes a positively charged ion. This process happens easily because of the low ionization energy.
Step 5: Conclude that because alkali metals can easily lose their outer electron, they are very reactive with other elements, especially nonmetals.
