How Much Do You Know about Ionization Energies?

Ivan Chen
3 min readJan 18, 2019

--

Atomic orbital energy

We only consider the energy state of the orbit in which the electrons are discussed under the shielding of other electrons, and have nothing to do with the energy of other electrons. The energy of the orbit in which the electron is discussed is, on the one hand, attracted by the nuclear charge, reducing energy, while It is shielded by other electrons with similar energy in the inner layer or the same layer, which increases the potential energy and increases the energy. On the other hand, when the main quantum number of the orbit where the electron is discussed is n>3, the electron wave is drilled inside. The probability of the layer increases gradually, and the average energy of the electron is correspondingly reduced, which is equivalent to partially reducing the main quantum number. If the effective nuclear charge is from the shielding effect, then the effective main quantum number comes from the drilling effect. The orbital energy of a multi-electron atom or ion needs to be calculated with the effective nuclear charge Z axe and the effective principal quantum number n’. From the calculation example, we also use Xu Guangxian’s improved: alet: method to calculate the carbon orbital energy of 23 atoms. Not only considers 1: electron-to- 2' electron shielding and mutual shielding between two 2' electrons, but also considers the Zp electron pair 2: electron shielding of similar energy, which is obviously more practical. Need here Note that: in the specific application of the same set of calculations must be constant and the shield principal quantum number.

Track energy

It is not difficult to understand that the atomic orbital energy is actually the energy of a single electron moving in the orbit. Since the energy of each electron moving in the degenerate orbit is equal, the total energy of the electron in the degenerate orbit is equal to the product of the orbital energy and the number of electrons.

Ionization electron

Ionization energy and electron affinity energy refer to the change of system energy when each mole of gaseous atom or ion is ionized or receives 1 mole of electron, and the energy of atom or ion system is fully reflected in the total energy of electrons contained in atom or ion. Above, so when calculating the ionization energy or electron affinity, the energy of the atomic or ionic system before and after the change must be calculated separately before the ionization energy or electron affinity can be calculated.

Instance calculation

The first ionization energy of the carbon atom is 1103.7kJ/mol, the first electron affinity energy is 95.7kJ/mol, and the negative value of the Zp orbital energy of the carbon atom is 2932.4kJ/moI, and the Zp orbital energy of the +1 valent carbon ion the negative value is 3571.9kJ/mol, and the negative value of the Zp orbital energy of a 1-valent carbon ion is 2355.8kJ/mol. Therefore, the ionization energy is not equal to the negative value of the orbital energy, nor is it equal to the difference between the orbital energy before and after the change.

Finally, we need to explain that whether using the: later method or the improved: l is calculated by the e: method, there is a certain deviation between the result and the experimental value, because we use the shielding constant and the effective main quantum number. Both are empirical values ​​summed up indirectly, but this does not affect our understanding of atomic orbital energy, ionization energy, and electron affinity.

About us

As a global Contract Research Organization (CRO), Alfa Chemistry has served the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries for eight years. We offers an extensive catalog of Ammonium ionic liquids, Periodic Table of the Elements, Chemical Glossary, General Safety Handling Consideration in a wide range of applications.

--

--

Responses (1)