What is the second ionization enthalpy of an element? Is it the ionization enthalpy of removing an electron from the penultimate shell?
Second ionisation energy is the energy required to remove an electron from an ion that has already lost one electron. The energy required to lose the outermost electron is termed as first ionisation energy or simply ionisation energy. When this ion loses another electron from the valence shell, then the energy required to remove this second electron from the ion is known as second ionisation energy. Similalry, the energy required to remove the third electron from this ion would be known as third ionisation energy. Also note that the second ionisation energy is always more than the first ionisation energy, and third ionisation energy is always more than the second ionisation energy.