Answer to Question #53398 in Inorganic Chemistry for manisha

Question

why xenon form compound with only flourine and oxygen not with any other element?

Answer 1

Xenon has huge radius of 140 pm and the number of electrons of 54. It results in low ionization energy of 1170.4 kJ/mol which is less than those reported for He, Ar and Kr. On the other hand fluorine and oxygen are strong oxidizing agents. They have the small radii and need only 1 electron (for fluorine [He] 2s2 2p5) and 2 electrons (for oxygen [He] 2s2 2p4) to complete their energy level. This provides the highest elctronegativities being of 4 and 3.5 for fluorine and oxygen, respectively. Therefore these elements can form substances with xenon. However, fluorine can only react with xenon directly, and an oxygen compound is obtained from a xenon fluoride:
Xe + F2 → XeF2
Xe + 2F2 → XeF4
Xe + 3F2 → XeF6
XeF6 + 3H2O → XeO3 + 6HF