Why does Lithium have the highest Hydration Enthalpy?
It’s the anomalous behaviour of Lithium because of its small size and high nuclear charge. Lithium exerts the greatest polarizing effect out of all the alkali metals on negative ion. Let me explain. What is Hydration? It is the dissoloution of the substance in water by adsorbing water molecule by weak valency forces. Smaller the cation, greater is the degree of hydration.Alkali metals easily lose 1 electron therefore have high values of “oxidising potential” which means high tendency to get oxidised hence powerful reducing nature in aqueous medium. It is a fact that Li+ has greatest reducing nature in aqueous medium due to maximum hydration energy for Li+ ion. As the periodic trends already say that 1st member of every group behaves a bit different from the rest because of its small size. All the best! i guess you are in 11th?
