Identify each statement as true or false: (a) Ionization energies are always negative quantities. (b) Oxygen has a larger first ionization energy than fluorine. (c) The second ionization energy of an atom is always greater than its first ionization energy. (d) The third ionization energy is the energy needed to ionize three electrons from a neutral atom.

Short Answer

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(a) FALSE: Ionization energies are always positive quantities. (b) FALSE: Oxygen has a smaller first ionization energy than fluorine. (c) TRUE: The second ionization energy of an atom is always greater than its first ionization energy. (d) FALSE: The third ionization energy refers to the energy needed to remove the third electron from an ion with a +2 charge, not the sum of energies required to remove all three electrons.

Step by step solution

01

Statement (a): Ionization energies are always negative quantities.

Ionization energy is the energy needed to remove an electron from an atom or ion. Since energy is required to remove an electron, ionization energies are always positive quantities. Therefore, this statement is FALSE.
02

Statement (b): Oxygen has a larger first ionization energy than fluorine.

The first ionization energy generally increases from left to right across a period in the periodic table, due to an increasing effective nuclear charge. Oxygen is to the left of fluorine in the periodic table, so it has a weaker effective nuclear charge than fluorine. This means oxygen would generally have a lower ionization energy than fluorine. Therefore, this statement is FALSE.
03

Statement (c): The second ionization energy of an atom is always greater than its first ionization energy.

The first ionization energy refers to the energy required to remove the first electron from a neutral atom, while the second ionization energy refers to removing an electron from an ion with a +1 charge. Since the positively charged ion has a stronger attraction to the remaining electrons, the energy required to remove a second electron is generally greater than the energy required to remove the first electron. Therefore, this statement is TRUE.
04

Statement (d): The third ionization energy is the energy needed to ionize three electrons from a neutral atom.

The third ionization energy refers to the energy needed to remove the third electron from an ion with a +2 charge. However, this statement is slightly misleading, as the third ionization energy only refers to the energy needed to remove the third electron, not the sum of the energy needed to remove all three electrons. The third ionization energy does not directly represent the energy needed to remove three electrons; you would need to add the first, second, and third ionization energies together to find the total energy required to remove three electrons. Therefore, this statement is FALSE.

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