Question 6.5: LATTICE ENERGIES Which has the larger lattice energy, NaCl o...

LATTICE ENERGIES

Which has the larger lattice energy, NaCl or CsI?

STRATEGY
The magnitude of a substance’s lattice energy is affected both by the charges on its constituent ions and by the sizes of those ions. The higher the charges on the ions and the smaller the sizes of the ions, the larger the lattice energy. In this case, all four ions— Na^{+},Cs^{+} ,Cl^{-} ,  and  I^{-} —are singly charged, so they differ only in size.

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Because Na^{+} is smaller than Cs^{+} and Cl^{-} is smaller than I^{-}, the distance between ions is smaller in NaCl than in CsI. Thus, NaCl has the larger lattice energy.

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