Which electrons get removed to form "Ar"^+ and "Ar"^(2+)?
1 Answer
May 26, 2016
Argon (
Any electron removed during an ionization is from the orbital that is currently highest in energy.
You can see in Appendix B.9 here that the energy of the
So, the
"Ar"^(+) :1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 color(blue)(3p^5)
"Ar"^(2+) :1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 color(blue)(3p^4)
As a general observation, the energies for orbitals of the same principal quantum number
E_"nd" > E_"np" > E_"ns"