In an ionic compound, the size of the ions affects the internuclear distance (the distance between the centers of adjacent ions), which affects lattice energy (a measure of the attractive force holding those ions together). based on ion sizes, arrange these compounds by their expected lattice energy. note that many sources define lattice energies as negative values. arrange by magnitude and ignore the sign. |lattice energy|=absolute value of the lattice energy greatest|lattice energy|. rbcl ,rbbr ,rbl ,rbf.