INORGANIC

CHEMISTRY 2 Transition
Elements
CHE 212

LECT. 7
Dr. Reham El-Araby
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 Transition Elements
The elements in the periodic table are often divided into four
categories:
(1) Main group elements,
(2) Transition metals,
(3) Lanthanides, and
(4) Actinides.
• The main group elements include the active metals in the
two columns on the extreme left of the periodic table and
• The metals, semimetals, and nonmetals in the six columns
on the far right. 2
Transition Elements

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 Transition Elements
• The transition metals are the metallic elements that serve as a
bridge, or transition, between the two sides of the table.

• They are chemical elements that have valence electrons in

two shells instead of only one.

• The lanthanides and the actinides at the bottom of the table

are sometimes known as the inner transition metals because
they have atomic numbers that fall between the first and
second elements in the last two rows of the transition metals.
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 What is a transition metal?
“an element with valance d- or f-electrons” ie. a d-block or f block
metal
d-block: transition elements

3d
4d
5d
6d

f-block:
inner transition elements
4f
5f
 Transition Elements
General Properties:
• They are all metals and that most of them are hard, strong, and
lustrous,

• Have high melting and boiling points, highly dense metals, and

• Are good conductors of heat and electricity.

• They form one or more stable ions with incompletely filled

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orbitals.
 Transition Elements
General Properties

• The transition metals form colored compounds

and often have more than one oxidation state.
“as they can lose a different number of electrons”

Iron for example can lose two electrons to form Fe2+ or three
electrons to form Fe3+.

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 Transition Elements

Coloured compounds &

variable oxidation states are
due to presence of an inner
incomplete d sub-shell.

Electrons from both inner d sub-

shell and outer s sub-shell can be
involved in compound formation.
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 Transition Elements

Coloured Compounds & Variable Oxidation States

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 Electronic Configuration
• Across the 1st row of the d block (Sc to Zn) each element
– has 1 more electron and 1 more proton.

– Each “additional” electron enters the 3d sub-shell.

– The core configuration for all the period 4 transition elements is

that of Ar 18

• 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6

 Transition Elements
Transition metals occur in nature in various forms.

A nugget of copper A deposit of gold An ore containing

oxidized iron 21
 Transition Elements
• Generally, the transition elements are extracted from
minerals found in a variety of ores.
• However, the ease of their recovery varies widely,
depending on:
✓ The concentration of the element in the ore, the identity
of the other elements present, and

✓ The difficulty of reducing the element to the free metal.

In general, it is not difficult to reduce ions of the d-block

elements to the free element. 22
 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel
• Cobalt is a ferromagnetic metal and is used
primarily in the production of magnetic and high-
strength superalloys.
•
[Ar] 3d7 4s2 • Co-60, a commercially important radioisotope, is
useful as a radioactive tracer and gamma ray
source.

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 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel

• Nickel is sometimes found free in nature but is

more commonly found in ores.
[Ar]3d8 4s2. • The bulk of mined nickel comes from laterite
and magmatic sulfide ores.
• Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal that is considered
corrosion-resistant because of its slow rate of oxidation.

• Elemental Nickel is one of four elements that are ferromagnetic and

is used in the production of various type of magnets for commercial
use. 24
 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel

• In its elemental form, iron has a lustrous grayish

metallic appearance.

[Ar] 3d6 4s2

• Iron is the fourth most common element in the
Earth's crust and the most common element by
mass forming the earth as a whole.

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 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel
• Iron is rarely found as a free element, since it tends to
oxidize easily; it is usually found in minerals such as
hematite, Fe2O3; siderite, FeCO3; and magnetite, Fe3O4.

• Elemental Iron Though pure iron is

typically soft, the addition of carbon creates
the alloy known as steel, which is The iron ore
magnetite, Fe3O4
significantly stronger.
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 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel

• Iron, cobalt, and nickel are fairly good reducing agents,

so they rarely appear uncombined in nature.

• Iron is one of the most common elements in the

universe.

• Uncombined iron, cobalt, and nickel can be found in

meteors.
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 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel

• Cobalt like nickel, cobalt in the Earth’s crust is found

only in chemically combined form, except small deposits
found in alloys of natural meteoric iron.

• The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a

hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.

• The earth itself has a hot, dense core made largely of

iron and nickel. 28
 Iron, Cobalt, & Nickel

• Heat resistant alloys of iron, nickel and cobalt are used

where high temperature performance.

• Such alloys are designed to offer high strength at elevated

temperatures.

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 Iron mining and iron ore processing
• One of the more common methods of mining for iron ore
is open cast mining.
• Open cast mining is used when the iron ore is found
near the surface.
• Once the ore has been removed, it needs to be crushed
into fine particles before it can be processed further.
• Iron is commonly found in the form of iron oxides.
• To create pure iron, the ore must be smelted to remove
the oxygen.
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Iron mining and iron ore processing

Smelting
Is a method used to extract a
metal from its ore and then purify
it.

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 Iron mining and iron ore processing
• Smelting usually involves heating the ore and also adding a
reducing agent (e.g. carbon) so that the metal can be freed from
its ore.
• The bonds between iron and oxygen are very strong, and
therefore it is important to use an element that will form
stronger bonds with oxygen than the iron.
(This is why carbon (C) is used)
• In fact, carbon monoxide (CO) is the main ingredient that is
needed to strip oxygen from iron.
• These reactions take place in a blast furnace.
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 Iron mining and iron ore processing
A blast furnace (the biggest chemical reactor):

• Is a huge steel container can be up to 60 meters tall and 15 meters

in diameter, and lined with heat-resistant material.

• In the furnace the solid raw materials, i.e. iron ore, carbon (in the
form of ’coke’, a type of coal) and a flux (e.g. limestone) are fed
into the top of the furnace and a blast of heated air is forced into
the furnace from the bottom.

• Temperatures in a blast furnace can reach 2000 oC. 34

Iron Production Process
A blast furnace

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 Iron Production Process
• The equations for the reactions that take place are :
STEP 1: Production of carbon monoxide
C + O2 → CO2
CO2 + C → 2CO
STEP 2: Reduction of iron oxides takes place in a number of stages
to produce iron.
3Fe2O3 + CO → 2Fe3O4 + CO2
Fe3O4 + CO → 3FeO + CO2
FeO + CO → Fe + CO2
STEP 3: Fluxing
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Iron Production Process

Flux
Is a chemical purifying agent is
used in metallurgy.

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 Iron Production Process
• A common flux is limestone (CaCO3).

• Common impurities are:

-Silica, Phosphorus (makes steel brittle),

-Aluminum and Sulfur (produces SO2 gases during smelting and

interferes with the smelting process).

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 Iron mining and iron ore processing
In step 3,
• The calcium carbonate breaks down into calcium oxide
and carbon dioxide.
CaCO3 → CaO + CO2

• The calcium oxide then reacts with silicon dioxide (the

impurity) to form a slag.
• In this case the slag is the CaSiO3.

CaO + SiO2 → CaSiO3 39

 Iron mining and iron ore processing

• The slag melts in the furnace, whereas the silicon dioxide

floats on the more dense iron.

• This can then be separated and removed.

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Iron Production
Process

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 Iron mining and iron ore processing

• Iron involves the chemical reduction of the minerals by

carbon (in the form of coke) in a blast furnace.

• The concentrated iron ore, limestone (CaCO3), and coke

are introduced into the furnace from the top.

• A blast of hot air is forced up the furnace from the

bottom.
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 Iron mining and iron ore processing

• The O2 gas reacts with the carbon (C) in the coke to form
mostly carbon monoxide (CO) and some carbon dioxide
(CO2).

• These reactions are highly exothermic, and as the hot CO

and CO2 gases rise, they react with the iron oxides in
different temperature zones.
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 Iron Production Process

• The key steps in the extraction of iron are

• The limestone decomposes in the furnace as follows:

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 Iron Production Process
• The calcium oxide then reacts with the impurities in the
iron, which are mostly sand (SiO2) and aluminum oxide
(Al2O3):

• The mixture of calcium silicate and calcium aluminate

that remains molten at the furnace temperature is known as
slag.
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 Iron Production Process

• By the time the ore works its way down to the bottom of
the furnace, most of it has already been reduced to iron.

• The temperature of the lower part of the furnace is above

the melting point of impure iron, and so the molten iron at
the lower level can be run off to a receiver.

• The slag, because it is less dense, forms the top layer

above the molten iron and can be run off at that level.
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 Iron Production Process

• Iron extracted in this way contains many impurities and is called pig
iron; it may contain up to 5 % carbon and some silicon,
phosphorus, manganese, and sulfur.

• Some impurities come from silicate minerals and phosphates, while

carbon and sulfur come from coke.

• Pig iron is granular and brittle. It has a relatively low melting point
(about 1180°C), so it can be cast in various forms; for this reason it is
also called cast iron.
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 Iron Production Process

• Iron can reduce carbon dioxide,

• So complete reduction of the iron occurs only if the

carbon dioxide is destroyed by adding excess coke:

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 Iron Production Process
• The gas that escapes from the top of the furnace contains carbon
monoxide, which is combined with air to form carbon dioxide.

• The energy released in this exothermic reaction is collected in a heat

exchanger and used in heating the furnace.

• The iron collected from the blast furnace, called pig iron, is quite
impure.
• It contains 90% iron, 5% carbon, 2% manganese, 1% silicon,
0.3% phosphorus, and 0.04% sulfur (from impurities in the coke).
•
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 Iron Production Process

The production of 1 ton of pig iron requires:

approximately 1.7 tons of iron ore, 0.5 ton of

coke, 0.25 ton of limestone, and 2 tons of air.

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Steel Production

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 Steel Production
• Steel is an alloy and can be classified as carbon steel, which
contains up to about 1.5% carbon, or alloy steel, which contains
carbon plus other metals such as Cr, Co, Mn, and Mo.

• The wide range of mechanical properties associated with steel is

determined by its chemical composition and by the heat treatment of
the final product.

• The production of iron from its ore is fundamentally a reduction

process, but the conversion of iron to steel is basically an oxidation
process in which unwanted impurities are eliminated.
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 Steel Production

Oxidation is carried out in various ways, but the

most common is the basic oxygen process.

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 Steel Production

• One of several methods used in steelmaking is the basic oxygen

process. WHY?

• Because of its ease of operation and the relatively short time

(about 20 minutes) required for each large-scale (hundreds of tons)
conversion, the basic oxygen process is by far the most common
means of producing steel today.

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 Steel Production
• Molten iron from the blast furnace is poured into an upright cylindrical
vessel.

• Pressurized oxygen gas is introduced via a water-cooled tube above the

molten metal.

• Under these conditions, manganese, phosphorus, and silicon, as well as

excess carbon, react with oxygen to form oxides.

• These oxides are then react with the appropriate fluxes (for example,
CaO or SiO2) to form slag.

• The type of flux chosen depends on the composition of the iron. 56

 Steel Production

1. If the main impurities are silicon and phosphorus, a basic flux such
as (CaO) is added to the iron:

2. If manganese is the main impurity, then an acidic flux such as

(SiO2 )is needed to form the slag:

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 Steel Production

• The molten steel is sampled at intervals.

• When the desired blend of carbon and other impurities has

been reached, the vessel is rotated to a horizontal position so
that the molten steel can be taken out.

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Steel Production

The basic oxygen process

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 Steel Production
• The properties of steel depend not only on its chemical
composition but also on the heat treatment.

• At high temperatures, iron and carbon in steel combine to form

iron carbide, Fe3C, called cementite.

• The forward reaction is endothermic, so that the formation of

cementite is favored at high temperatures.
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 Steel Production
Heat Treatment Of Cementite Steel:

• When steel containing cementite is cooled slowly, the above equilibrium

shifts to the left, and the carbon separates as small particles of graphite,
which give the steel a gray color.

• If the steel is cooled rapidly, equilibrium is not attained and the carbon
remains largely in the form of cementite, Fe3C.

• Steel containing cementite is light in color, and it is harder and more

brittle than that containing graphite.
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 Steel Production

• Heating the steel to some appropriate temperature for a short time and
then cooling it rapidly in order to give it the desired mechanical
properties is known as “tempering”

• In this way, the ratio of carbon present as graphite and as

cementite can be varied within rather wide limits.

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 Steel Production
Percent Composition and Uses of Various Types of Steel

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 Steel Production

Purification of Metals:

• Metals prepared by reduction usually need further treatment to

remove impurities.
•
• The extent of purification, of course, depends on how the metal will
be used.

• Three common purification procedures are distillation, electrolysis,

and zone refining.
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