Homework Help Forum: chemistry

Posted by neb on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 9:52am.

which has a higher inoization, phosphorus or sulfur? back-up your answer with an electron orbital dieagram for each

• chemistry - GK, Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 11:14pm

  Do you mean higher ionization energy? Phosphorus has a higher first ionization energy. Its 2p subshell is half-filled with one eletron in each orbital. The three electrons have identical (parallel) spins. A sulfur atom has one more electron than phosphorus in the 2p subshell. This extra electron reduces the symmetry of the the 2p subshell and its stability. Removing the 4th electron in the 2p subshell of sulfur requires less energy since it improves the stability of the 2p subshell.

  
  

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