Question

With the removal of 4 electrons from magnesium atom, which Ionization energy (I1, I2, I3, I4) would you expect to observe the largest increase in ionization energy.

I know the answer is I3 but I need help writing a good CER

Answer 1

Claim: The jump in ionization energy from I2 to I3 is the largest.

Evidence: You would have to search some up but the jump is from 1450.7 kj/mole to 7732.7 kj/mole. You could also say that magnesium has an electron configuration of [Ne] 3s2 and after removing the two outer valance electrons the next electrons being removed would be core electrons.

Reasoning: Core electrons need lots of energy to remove from the atom, while valance electrons are easy to remove. The 2nd electron removed is a valance electron, while the 3rd electron removed is a core electron. Thus, we should expect that the energy needed to remove a hard to remove electron (the 3rd electron) would be much more than the energy needed to remove the easy to remove electron (2nd) and we should expect a large jump of ionization energy from I2 to I3.