Periodic Trends
- Page ID
- 53107
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Periodic trends are specific patterns that are present in the periodic table that illustrate different aspects of a certain element, including its size and its electronic properties. Major periodic trends include: electronegativity, ionization energy, electron affinity, atomic radius, melting point, and metallic character. Periodic trends, arising from the arrangement of the periodic table, provide chemists with an invaluable tool to quickly predict an element's properties. These trends exist because of the similar atomic structure of the elements within their respective group families or periods, and because of the periodic nature of the elements.
- Ionization Energy
- Ionization energy is the energy needed to remove an electron from an atom or ion. Unlike atomic radii, we can and do measure ionization energies in the gas phase, when the atom or ion is not interacting with anything else.
- Slater's Rules for Effective Nuclear Charge
- Effective nuclear charge determines the size and energy of orbitals, which determine most properties of atoms. Slater's rules give a simple approximation of effective nuclear charge, which depends on the number of electrons that might get between, so it depends on the electron we are looking at. For any electron, to find the effective nuclear charge it feels, we need to know how many other electrons might get in the way, and how much time it spends near the nucleus.
Contributors and Attributions
Emily V Eames (City College of San Francisco)