Question

Account for the following:

Noble gases exhibit low chemical activity.

Answer 1

Noble gases exhibit low chemical activity due to the following reasons:

1. They have completely filled valence electron shells (stable electronic configuration).
2. The next vacant shell is at a much higher energy, making electron gain or loss difficult.
3. They possess very high ionisation enthalpy (requires a lot of energy to remove an electron).
4. Their electron gain enthalpy is largely positive, showing no tendency to gain electrons. Because of these factors, noble gases rarely react under normal conditions and are mostly inert.