What is an Element?

 An Element is a substance which cannot be broken down into

simpler substances by chemical reactions.

• Chemical reactions are processes in which substances are

changed to produce new substances.

• Water can be broken down into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas
and in a chemical process called electrolysis.

However both hydrogen and oxygen cannot be broken down

into simpler substances by chemical reactions.

Thus hydrogen and oxygen are elements but water is not.

• Question- Water is a compound made up of the elements

hydrogen and oxygen.

What is the difference between elements and compounds?

• Answer- An element is a substance which cannot be broken

down into simpler substances by chemical reactions.
A compound is made up of two or more elements chemically
combined.

• The first letter in the chemical symbol is always capitalized

and any other letter that follows is in lower case.

• For chemical symbols with two letters, are usually but not
always the first two letters of the name of the elements.

For example the chemical symbols for calcium and helium are
Ca and He respectively but the chemical symbol for chlorine is
Cl.

• Although there are more than 100 elements, each element has
its own set of physical and chemical properties.

• Elements differ in physical properties such as colour, density,

boiling and melting points and electrical and heat conductivities.

They also differ in chemical properties, that is, the ways they
react in chemical reactions.