What is the trend in ionization energy across a period?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
What is the trend in ionization energy across a period?
Increases
Decreases
Remains constant
Increases then decreases
Ionization energy generally increases across a period due to increasing nuclear charge.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
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Q
Q: What is the trend in ionization energy across a period?
Solution: Ionization energy generally increases across a period due to increasing nuclear charge.
Steps: 5
Step 1: Understand what ionization energy is. It is the energy required to remove an electron from an atom.
Step 2: Know what a period is. A period is a row in the periodic table where elements have the same number of electron shells.
Step 3: Recognize that as you move from left to right across a period, the number of protons in the nucleus increases. This is called increasing nuclear charge.
Step 4: Realize that with more protons, the positive charge of the nucleus pulls the electrons closer, making it harder to remove an electron.
Step 5: Conclude that because of this stronger attraction, the ionization energy increases as you move across a period.
