The periodic table is often considered to be the "best friend" of chemists and chemistry students. It includes information about atomic masses and element symbols, but it can also be used to make predictions about atomic sizes, electronegativity, ionization energies, bonding, solubility or reactivity. Today's workshop is all about understanding ionization energy (IE). Ionization energy. IE is the amount of energy required to remove the outermost electron from an atom to create a positive ion. Electrons are always removed from an atom/ion one at a time and so most atoms (all except hydrogen) will have more than 1 ionization energy. Each successive ionization energy for a given element represents the removal of a subsequent electron. The table below contains the first 4 ionization energies of magnesium. Our goal is to write the IE equations for all four IE values, but before we do that, let's make sense of the values in the table. IE1 IE2 1752 kJ/mol IES IE 896 kl/mol 14,807 kl/mol 17,948 kJ/mol Part 1. Discuss the following questions with your group. 1. It is often said that all of chemistry is governed by electrostatic interactions. What do you think holds the electrons of Mg to its nucleus? 2. Why do you think the ionization energy for Mg increases as you go from h to la? 3. Why do you think there is such a large difference between the 2d and 3 ionization energies of Mg?