This can be further justified from the ionic configuration of metals (i.e., from the periodic table). In the periodic table moving from left to right the nuclear increases by +1 at each next element results in an increase of electronic force between nucleus and valence shell electron and hence magnitude of ionization energy increases. Further, on moving down the group the increase in size of atoms dominates the increase in nuclear charge and ionization energy gradually decreases. The ionization energy of the metal ions used in this study can be arranged as potassium (418.9 kJ/mole) has the lowest followed by sodium (495.8 kJ/mole), barium (502.9 kJ/mole) and calcium (589.8 kJ/mole).Higher the ionization energy, lower will be the metallic character and basicity of the alkali, that is, lower Kb values and vice versa (Prakash et al., 2000). Further, the ionic radius of hydroxyl (OH−) and carbonate (CO−23 ) ions may also play a role in the basicity of alkalis. The ionic radius of OH− (119 pm) is lower than that of CO−23 (164 pm), resulting in higher electron affinity of former anion. The basicity of hydroxyl compounds is therefore greater than carbonate compounds. The degumming order of various alkalis taking into account of their metal ion is