Iodine, dissociation electron affinity

Electron affinity and hydration energy decrease with increasing atomic number of the halogen and in spite of the slight fall in bond dissociation enthalpy from chlorine to iodine the enthalpy changes in the reactions... 

The trend in oxidation potentials may be considered a composite trend, similar to that described for the E° values of the alkali metals (Chap. 6). For the halogens, the following quantities are involved heats of dissociation of the molecules, electron affinities of the atoms, hydration energies of the ions, heats of vaporization (for bromine and iodine only), and, finally, entropy or randomness effects. Aside from the entropy effects (which turn out to be quite small for the reactions being considered), the reduction of the halogen X to the hydrated ion X at room temperature may be represented in steps as follows ... 

Fluorine is, in fact, an extremely powerful oxidising agent. In spite of lower dissociation energies bromine and iodine are weaker oxiding agents than chlorine this is due to their smaller electron affinities and smaller hydration energies. 

---