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10 11 12 13 14
15
16
17
18
2
He
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Li
11
Be
12
B
13
C
14
N
15
O
16
F
17
Ne
18
Na
19
Mg
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Al
31
Si
32
P
33
S
34
Cl
35
Ar
36
K
37
Ca
38
Sc
39
Ti
40
V
41
Cr
42
Mn Fe
43 44
Co
45
Ni
46
Cu
47
Zn
48
Ga
49
Ge
50
As
51
Se
52
Br
53
Kr
54
Rb
55
Sr
56
Y
57
Zr
72
Nb
73
Mo Tc
74 75
Ru
76
Rh
77
Pd
78
Ag
79
Cd
80
In
81
Sn
82
Sb
83
Te
84
I
85
Xe
86
Cs
87
Ba
88
La
89
Hf
104
Ta
105
W
106
Re
107
Os
108
Ir
109
Pt
110
Au
111
Hg
112
Tl
113
Pb
114
Bi
115
Po
116
At
117
Rn
118
Fr
Ra
Ac
Rf
Db
Sg
Bh
Hs
Mt
Ds
Rg
Cn
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
Ce
90
Pr
91
Nd
92
Pm Sm
93 94
Eu
95
Gd
96
Tb
97
Dy
98
Ho
99
Er
100
Tm
101
Yb
102
Lu
103
Th
Pa
Np
Pu
Am Cm Bk
Cf
Es
Fm
Md
No
Lr
X
Solids
X
Gases
Alkali Metals
Transition Metals
Other Metals
Metalloids
Halogens
Noble Gases
He realized that the table in front of him lay at the very heart of chemistry. In his table he noted gaps - spaces where elements should be but none had yet been discovered. In fact, just as Adams and Le Verrier could be said to have discovered the planet Neptune on paper, Mendeleev could be said to have discovered germanium (which he called eka-silicon because he observed a gap between silicon and tin), gallium (eka-aluminum) and scandium (eka-boron) on paper, for he predicted their existence and their properties before their actual discoveries. Although Mendeleev had made a crucial breakthrough, he made little further progress because the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom had not yet been formulated. In 1913, Henry Moseley, who worked with Rutherford, showed that it is atomic number (electric charge) which is most fundamental to the chemical properties of any element. Mendeleev had believed chemical properties were determined by atomic weight. Moseley correctly predicted the existence of new elements based on atomic numbers. Today the chemical elements are still arranged in order of increasing atomic number (Z) as you go from left to right across the table. We call the horizontal rows periods and the vertical rows groups. We also know now that an element's chemistry is determined by the way its electrons are arranged - its electron configuration. The noble gases are found in group 18, on the far right of each period. The reluctance of the noble gases to undergo chemical reactions indicates that the atoms of these gases strongly prefer their own electron configurations featuring a full outer shell of electrons - to any other. In contrast to the noble gases, the elements with the highest reactivity are those with the greatest need to gain or lose electrons in order to achieve a full outer shell of electrons. Elements that sit in the same group (e.g. the alkali metals in Group 1) all have the same number of outer electrons, leading to similar chemical properties. Likewise the halogens in Group 17 also have similar properties to one another. When halogens react, they gain an electron to form negatively charged ions. Each ion has the same electron configuration as the noble gas in the same period. The ions are therefore more chemically stable than the elements from which they formed. There is a progression from metals to non-metals across each period. The block of elements in groups 3 - 12 contains the transition metals. These are similar to one another in many ways: they produce colored compounds, have variable valency and are often used as catalysts.
Then we come to the lanthanides (elements 58 - 71) and actinides (elements 90 - 103). The lanthanides are often called the rare earth elements, although in fact these elements are not rare. The actinides include most of the wellknown elements that take part in or are produced by nuclear reactions. No element with atomic number higher than 92 occurs naturally in large quantities. Tiny amounts of plutonium and neptunium exist in nature as decay products of uranium. These elements, and higher elements, are also produced artificially in nuclear reactors or particle accelerators.
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