The cohesion energy is the amount of energy required to separate neutral atoms in their ground state from the solid state at a temperature of zero Kelvin and at one atmospheric pressure.
The inert gases are weakly bound to neighbouring atoms so the cohesive energy is small, the alkali metals have intermediate values of cohesive energy. The most strongly bound are the transition metals and these, with the exception of some group 4 elements, have the highest cohesive energies. Tungsten has the highest cohesion energy at 859 KJ/mol, neon the lowest at 1.92 KJ/mol. Carbon has the very high value of 711 KJ/mol.
It is interesting to plot scattergrams of the Cohesion Energy against either boiling point, melting point or Debye Temperature.
