Question #b2b2b

2 Answers
Mar 5, 2015

XY will have a lattice energy of -2980 kJ/mol.

This is a very simple problem if you're familiar with the Born-Lande equation for calculating lattice energies. Here's how that looks like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born%E2%80%93Land%C3%A9_equationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born%E2%80%93Land%C3%A9_equation

I won't list what all the terms in this equation mean because all but three of them are not important. The three terms that you should focus on are

z+ the charge on the positive ion;
z the charge on the negative ion;
r0 the distance between the two opposite ions;

Now, I believe that you are supposed to ignore the terms that are specific to individual ionic compounds, and assume that all the constants for your hypothetical salt are identical to those for CsF.

If that's the case, you can rewrite the above equation like this

E=NAMe24πε0(11n)|z|+|z|r0

E=CONSTANT|z|+|z|r0

Now, because X2+ has the same radius as Cs+ and Y2 has the sameradius as F, the term r0 will be the same for both salts. Therefore,

E=CONSTANT(|z|+|z|)

In the case of CsF, z+ is +1 and z is -1; you can use this to write the lattice energy of XY using the lattice energy of CsF

EXY=ECsF(|z|+|z|)

Since XY has z+ equal to +2 and z equal to -2, you'll get

EXY=ECsF(|+2||2|)=4ECsF

EXY=4(-744 kJ/mol)=-2976 kJ/mol

Rounded to three sig figs, the answer will be

EXY=-2980 kJ/mol

Mar 5, 2015

The lattice energy of XY is 2976kJ/mol

If we consider 2 charges q1 and q2 separated by a distance r they are attracted by a force which is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them:

Fq1q2r2

So F=kq1q2r2

We can find the work done in separating these charges from a distance r to infinity by integrating between these limits:

W=krq1q2r2.dr

From which we get:

W=kq1q2r

This means that if we double the charges the work done required to separate them would go up by 2 x 2 = 4.

This means that in your example the lattice energy would increase to 4 x -744 = 2976kJ/mol, provided r does not change.

In this answer I have only considered 2 charges separated by a distance r. In reality ionic crystals are made up of giant lattices with attractive and repulsive forces moving out in 3 dimensions and decreasing with distance.

www.chemguide.co.ukwww.chemguide.co.uk

A more accurate expression for lattice enthalpy U which accounts for this is given by:

U=NMz2e24πε0r0(11n)

I won't go further into the details of this. If you want you can look up "Madelung Constant".