Now with successive ionization energies, realize that there's an ever increasing amount of energy required each time an electron is removed. So if you look at the numbers here, you can see we have our first ionization energies, then our second, all the way to our 7th. And you can see that with each ionization energy for each element the number increases. It gets harder and harder to remove the next electron. You can see lithium goes from 520.2 to 7298.
Now we're going to say traditionally elements lose valence electrons to become isoelectronic to the noble gases. We're going to say here a large jump in ionization energy results when we begin to remove the inner core electrons. Now think about it, Lithium is in Group 1A. It only wants to lose 1 electron to become just like a noble gas when we try to take away its second electron, we're going to need ionization energy too. Look at how much more energy is required. It's such a huge jump, more than a 10-fold increase.
Beryllium wants to lose 2 electrons to become like a noble gas because it's in Group 2A. Here you can see that going from the first ionization energy to the next, there's an increase. It's less than double. Once we remove the 2nd electron, it's now a noble gas. If I try to go in and take away the third electron, look at how much the energy increases, it jumps way up so you can predict where a jump in ionization energy will occur.
Remember each of these elements want to lose enough electrons to become just like a noble gas. Once you lose too many electrons, it's going to jump up in energy. Oxygen for example, if it were to lose 6 electrons, it would become like a noble gas. I know oxygen likes to gain electrons, not lose them, but we're talking about ionization energy here. When it loses that 6th electron, it's going to cause a huge jump. It's going to become a noble gas. But once we try to go in and take away that 7th electron, it's going to be a huge cost, right?
So again, we can predict where this big jump in ionization energy will be. It happens once our element has reached noble gas status. And then we're a little bit greedy and try to go back in and take away one additional electron. This causes a spike in the ionization energy.