does chlorine or carbon have greater ionization energy?
I would expect it to be harder to pull an electron away from 17 + charges on chlorine than 6+ charges on carbon; although the outer electron is farther away in Cl. You can look these things up in a table; I did and Cl has a higher IP than C but not by all that much.
Carbon has much less ionization energy, as Ionization energy is defined.
To determine which element, chlorine (Cl) or carbon (C), has a greater ionization energy, we need to understand the concept of ionization energy and how it is affected by the characteristics of the elements.
Ionization energy refers to the energy required to remove an electron from a neutral atom in its gaseous state. It is generally a measure of how strongly an electron is held by the nucleus of an atom. Higher ionization energy indicates a stronger attraction between the electron and the nucleus, making it more difficult to remove the electron.
As you correctly mentioned, chlorine has 17 positive charges in its nucleus, while carbon has only 6 positive charges. Therefore, one might expect that it would be more challenging to remove an electron from chlorine because of its higher positive charge.
However, the ionization energy is also influenced by other factors, such as the size of the atom and the electron configuration.
In the case of carbon, the outermost electron is located in the 2p orbital, while in chlorine, it is in the 3p orbital. The 3p orbital of chlorine is farther away from the nucleus compared to the 2p orbital of carbon. The greater distance weakens the attractive force between the positive nucleus and the outermost electron in chlorine. As a result, it becomes slightly easier to remove an electron from chlorine than from carbon, despite chlorine having a higher positive charge.
To verify this, you can consult the periodic table or various online resources that provide ionization energy values for different elements. These tables list the ionization energy for each element, usually represented as the energy required to remove one electron from a neutral atom. By comparing the values for chlorine and carbon, you will find that chlorine indeed has a higher ionization energy but not significantly higher.
In summary, while one might intuitively think that chlorine would have a higher ionization energy due to its higher positive charge, the slightly greater distance between the outermost electron and the nucleus in chlorine leads to only a moderate difference in ionization energy compared to carbon.