Periodic Table of Elements

Notes

*For elements with no stable isotopes, the mass number of the isotope with the longest half-life is in parentheses.

Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) due to different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. While all isotopes of a given element have almost the same chemical properties, they have different atomic masses and physical properties.

Compounds A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) composed of atoms from more than one element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a compound.

There are four types of compounds, depending on how the constituent atoms are held together:

A chemical formula specifies the number of atoms of each element in a compound molecule, using the standard abbreviations for the chemical elements and numerical subscripts. For example, a water molecule has formula H2O indicating two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Many chemical compounds have a unique CAS number identifier assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service. Globally, more than 350,000 chemical compounds (including mixtures of chemicals) have been registered for production and use.

A compound can be converted to a different chemical substance by interaction with a second substance via a chemical reaction. In this process, bonds between atoms may be broken in either or both of the interacting substances, and new bonds formed.

Electron Shells In chemistry and atomic physics, an electron shell may be thought of as an orbit followed by electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the "1 shell" (also called the "K shell"), followed by the "2 shell" (or "L shell"), then the "3 shell" (or "M shell"), and so on farther and farther from the nucleus. The shells correspond to the principal quantum numbers (n = 1, 2, 3, 4 ...) or are labeled alphabetically with the letters used in X-ray notation (K, L, M, …).

Each shell can contain only a fixed number of electrons: The first shell can hold up to two electrons, the second shell can hold up to eight (2 + 6) electrons, the third shell can hold up to 18 (2 + 6 + 10) and so on. The general formula is that the nth shell can in principle hold up to 2(n2) electrons.[1] For an explanation of why electrons exist in these shells see electron configuration.

Each shell consists of one or more subshells, and each subshell consists of one or more atomic orbitals.

Electron Configuration In atomic physics and quantum chemistry, the electron configuration is the distribution of electrons of an atom or molecule (or other physical structure) in atomic or molecular orbitals.[1] For example, the electron configuration of the neon atom is 1s2 2s2 2p6, meaning that the 1s, 2s and 2p subshells are occupied by 2, 2 and 6 electrons respectively.

Electronic configurations describe each electron as moving independently in an orbital, in an average field created by all other orbitals. Mathematically, configurations are described by Slater determinants or configuration state functions.

According to the laws of quantum mechanics, for systems with only one electron, a level of energy is associated with each electron configuration and in certain conditions, electrons are able to move from one configuration to another by the emission or absorption of a quantum of energy, in the form of a photon.

Knowledge of the electron configuration of different atoms is useful in understanding the structure of the periodic table of elements. This is also useful for describing the chemical bonds that hold atoms together. In bulk materials, this same idea helps explain the peculiar properties of lasers and semiconductors.

Pnictogen - A pnictogen[1] (/ˈpnɪktədʒən/ or /ˈnɪktədʒən/; from Ancient Greek: πνῑ́γω "to choke" and -gen, "generator") is any of the chemical elements in group 15 of the periodic table. This group is also known as the nitrogen family. It consists of the elements nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), bismuth (Bi), and perhaps the chemically uncharacterized synthetic element moscovium (Mc).

In modern IUPAC notation, it is called Group 15. In CAS and the old IUPAC systems it was called Group VA and Group VB respectively (pronounced "group five A" and "group five B", "V" for the Roman numeral 5).[2] In the field of semiconductor physics, it is still usually called Group V.[3] The "five" ("V") in the historical names comes from the "pentavalency" of nitrogen, reflected by the stoichiometry of compounds such as N2O5. They have also been called the pentels.

Chalcogen - The chalcogens (ore forming) (/ˈkælkədʒənz/ KAL-kə-jənz) are the chemical elements in group 16 of the periodic table. This group is also known as the oxygen family. It consists of the elements oxygen (O), sulfur (S), selenium (Se), tellurium (Te), and the radioactive element polonium (Po). The chemically uncharacterized synthetic element livermorium (Lv) is predicted to be a chalcogen as well.[1] Often, oxygen is treated separately from the other chalcogens, sometimes even excluded from the scope of the term "chalcogen" altogether, due to its very different chemical behavior from sulfur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium. The word "chalcogen" is derived from a combination of the Greek word khalkόs (χαλκός) principally meaning copper (the term was also used for bronze/brass, any metal in the poetic sense, ore or coin),[2] and the Latinized Greek word genēs, meaning born or produced.

Sulfur has been known since antiquity, and oxygen was recognized as an element in the 18th century. Selenium, tellurium and polonium were discovered in the 19th century, and livermorium in 2000. All of the chalcogens have six valence electrons, leaving them two electrons short of a full outer shell. Their most common oxidation states are −2, +2, +4, and +6. They have relatively low atomic radii, especially the lighter ones.

Lighter chalcogens are typically nontoxic in their elemental form, and are often critical to life, while the heavier chalcogens are typically toxic.[1] All of the naturally occurring chalcogens have some role in biological functions, either as a nutrient or a toxin. Selenium is an important nutrient (among others as a building block of selenocysteine) but is also commonly toxic.[6] Tellurium often has unpleasant effects (although some organisms can use it), and polonium (especially the isotope polonium-210) is always harmful as a result of its radioactivity.

Sulfur has more than 20 allotropes, oxygen has nine, selenium has at least eight, polonium has two, and only one crystal structure of tellurium has so far been discovered. There are numerous organic chalcogen compounds. Not counting oxygen, organic sulfur compounds are generally the most common, followed by organic selenium compounds and organic tellurium compounds. This trend also occurs with chalcogen pnictides and compounds containing chalcogens and carbon group elements.

Oxygen is generally obtained by separation of air into nitrogen and oxygen. Sulfur is extracted from oil and natural gas. Selenium and tellurium are produced as byproducts of copper refining. Polonium and livermorium are most available in particle accelerators. The primary use of elemental oxygen is in steelmaking. Sulfur is mostly converted into sulfuric acid, which is heavily used in the chemical industry.[6] Selenium's most common application is glassmaking. Tellurium compounds are mostly used in optical disks, electronic devices, and solar cells. Some of polonium's applications are due to its radioactivity.[

Halogen - The halogens (/ˈhælədʒən, ˈheɪ-, -loʊ-, -ˌdʒɛn/[1][2][3]) are a group in the periodic table consisting of five chemically related elements: fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), iodine (I), and astatine (At). The artificially created element 117, tennessine (Ts), may also be a halogen. In the modern IUPAC nomenclature, this group is known as group 17.

The name "halogen" means "salt-producing". When halogens react with metals, they produce a wide range of salts, including calcium fluoride, sodium chloride (common table salt), silver bromide and potassium iodide.

The group of halogens is the only periodic table group that contains elements in three of the main states of matter at standard temperature and pressure. All of the halogens form acids when bonded to hydrogen. Most halogens are typically produced from minerals or salts. The middle halogens—chlorine, bromine, and iodine—are often used as disinfectants. Organobromides are the most important class of flame retardants, while elemental halogens are dangerous and can be lethally toxic.

Alkali Metals

Any of the six chemical elements that make up group 1 of the periodic table - namely Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Cesium, and Francium. The alkali metals are so called because reaction with water forms alkali (strong bases capable of neutralizing acids).

Alkaline Earth Metals

Any of the six chemical elements that make up group 2 of the periodic table - namely Beryllium, Magnesium, Calcium, Strontium, Barium, and Radium. Alkali earth metals are in fact oxides, compounds of metal and Oxygen.

Lanthanoids

Any of the 15 consecutive chemical elements in the periodic table from Lanthanum to Lutetium. With Scandium and Yttrium they make up the rare earth metals. Lanthanides are highly dense elements with high melting and boiling points, and form alloys with other metals.

Actinoids

Any of the 15 consecutive chemical elements in the periodic table from Actinum to Lawrencium. As a group, they are significant because of their radioactivity. Although several members of the group, including Uranium and Plutonium occur naturally, most are man-made.

Transition Metals

Any of the various chemical elements that have valence electrons-ie., electrons that can participate in the formation of chemical bonds in two shells instead of just one. The most striking similarities shared by the 24 elements are they they are all metals and that most of them are hard, strong, and lustrous, have high melting and boiling points, and good conductors of heat and electricity.

Post-Transition Metals

The group of elements located between the transition metals and metalloids. Due to their properties, they are also called "other", or "poor" metals, and include Aluminum, Gallium, Indium, Thallium, Tin, Lead, and Bismuth. They tend to have lower boiling and melting points than transition metals.

Metalloids

An imprecise term used to describe chemical elements that forms a simple substance having properties intermediate between those of a typical metal and typical nonmetal. Including Boron, Silicon, Germanium, Arsenic, Antimony, Tellurium, and possibly Bismuth, Polonium, and Astatine. There is no single property which can be used to unambiguously identify an element as a metalloid.

State of Matter

In physics, a state of matter is one of the distinct forms in which matter can exist. Four states of matter are observable in everyday life: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Many intermediate states are known to exist, such as liquid crystal, and some states only exist under extreme conditions, such as Bose–Einstein condensates, neutron-degenerate matter, and quark–gluon plasma, which only occur, respectively, in situations of extreme cold, extreme density, and extremely high energy. For a complete list of all exotic states of matter, see the list of states of matter.

Historically, the distinction is made based on qualitative differences in properties. Matter in the solid state maintains a fixed volume and shape, with component particles (atoms, molecules or ions) close together and fixed into place. Matter in the liquid state maintains a fixed volume, but has a variable shape that adapts to fit its container. Its particles are still close together but move freely. Matter in the gaseous state has both variable volume and shape, adapting both to fit its container. Its particles are neither close together nor fixed in place. Matter in the plasma state has variable volume and shape, and contains neutral atoms as well as a significant number of ions and electrons, both of which can move around freely.

The term phase is sometimes used as a synonym for state of matter, but a system can contain several immiscible phases of the same state of matter.

Four Fundamental States

Solid - In a solid, constituent particles (ions, atoms, or molecules) are closely packed together. The forces between particles are so strong that the particles cannot move freely but can only vibrate. As a result, a solid has a stable, definite shape, and a definite volume. Solids can only change their shape by an outside force, as when broken or cut.

In crystalline solids, the particles (atoms, molecules, or ions) are packed in a regularly ordered, repeating pattern. There are various different crystal structures, and the same substance can have more than one structure (or solid phase). For example, iron has a body-centred cubic structure at temperatures below 912 °C (1,674 °F), and a face-centred cubic structure between 912 and 1,394 °C (2,541 °F). Ice has fifteen known crystal structures, or fifteen solid phases, which exist at various temperatures and pressures.

Glasses and other non-crystalline, amorphous solids without long-range order are not thermal equilibrium ground states; therefore they are described below as nonclassical states of matter.

Solids can be transformed into liquids by melting, and liquids can be transformed into solids by freezing. Solids can also change directly into gases through the process of sublimation, and gases can likewise change directly into solids through deposition.

Liquid - A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. The volume is definite if the temperature and pressure are constant. When a solid is heated above its melting point, it becomes liquid, given that the pressure is higher than the triple point of the substance. Intermolecular (or interatomic or interionic) forces are still important, but the molecules have enough energy to move relative to each other and the structure is mobile. This means that the shape of a liquid is not definite but is determined by its container. The volume is usually greater than that of the corresponding solid, the best known exception being water, H2O. The highest temperature at which a given liquid can exist is its critical temperature.

Gas - A gas is a compressible fluid. Not only will a gas conform to the shape of its container but it will also expand to fill the container.

In a gas, the molecules have enough kinetic energy so that the effect of intermolecular forces is small (or zero for an ideal gas), and the typical distance between neighboring molecules is much greater than the molecular size. A gas has no definite shape or volume, but occupies the entire container in which it is confined. A liquid may be converted to a gas by heating at constant pressure to the boiling point, or else by reducing the pressure at constant temperature.

At temperatures below its critical temperature, a gas is also called a vapor, and can be liquefied by compression alone without cooling. A vapor can exist in equilibrium with a liquid (or solid), in which case the gas pressure equals the vapor pressure of the liquid (or solid).

A supercritical fluid (SCF) is a gas whose temperature and pressure are above the critical temperature and critical pressure respectively. In this state, the distinction between liquid and gas disappears. A supercritical fluid has the physical properties of a gas, but its high density confers solvent properties in some cases, which leads to useful applications. For example, supercritical carbon dioxide is used to extract caffeine in the manufacture of decaffeinated coffee.

Plasma - Like a gas, plasma does not have definite shape or volume. Unlike gases, plasmas are electrically conductive, produce magnetic fields and electric currents, and respond strongly to electromagnetic forces. Positively charged nuclei swim in a "sea" of freely-moving disassociated electrons, similar to the way such charges exist in conductive metal, where this electron "sea" allows matter in the plasma state to conduct electricity.

A gas is usually converted to a plasma in one of two ways, e.g., either from a huge voltage difference between two points, or by exposing it to extremely high temperatures. Heating matter to high temperatures causes electrons to leave the atoms, resulting in the presence of free electrons. This creates a so-called partially ionised plasma. At very high temperatures, such as those present in stars, it is assumed that essentially all electrons are "free", and that a very high-energy plasma is essentially bare nuclei swimming in a sea of electrons. This forms the so-called fully ionised plasma.

The plasma state is often misunderstood, and although not freely existing under normal conditions on Earth, it is quite commonly generated by either lightning, electric sparks, fluorescent lights, neon lights or in plasma televisions. The Sun's corona, some types of flame, and stars are all examples of illuminated matter in the plasma state.

Phase Transitions

A state of matter is also characterized by phase transitions. A phase transition indicates a change in structure and can be recognized by an abrupt change in properties. A distinct state of matter can be defined as any set of states distinguished from any other set of states by a phase transition. Water can be said to have several distinct solid states. The appearance of superconductivity is associated with a phase transition, so there are superconductive states. Likewise, ferromagnetic states are demarcated by phase transitions and have distinctive properties. When the change of state occurs in stages the intermediate steps are called mesophases. Such phases have been exploited by the introduction of liquid crystal technology.

The state or phase of a given set of matter can change depending on pressure and temperature conditions, transitioning to other phases as these conditions change to favor their existence; for example, solid transitions to liquid with an increase in temperature. Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point, boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons are so energized that they leave their parent atoms.

Forms of matter that are not composed of molecules and are organized by different forces can also be considered different states of matter. Superfluids (like Fermionic condensate) and the quark–gluon plasma are examples.

In a chemical equation, the state of matter of the chemicals may be shown as (s) for solid, (l) for liquid, and (g) for gas. An aqueous solution is denoted (aq). Matter in the plasma state is seldom used (if at all) in chemical equations, so there is no standard symbol to denote it. In the rare equations that plasma is used it is symbolized as (p).

Isotopes

An isotope is an atom of an element with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. This gives an equal proton number (so by definition it's the same element) but a different mass number. The discovery of isotopes refuted Dalton's claim of atoms that all atoms of an element were identical – this is not true!

Isotopes are why the periodic table contains decimals for many elements' relative masses. Relative atomic mass for an element is an average value account for the masses and relative abundance of each isotope of an element.

"Relative" when talking about the mass of any atom or molecule, means relative to an atom of carbon-12.

Because neutrons have no charge, the number of neutrons doesn't change an atom's chemical reactivity. Therefore isotopes of an element have identical chemical properties to each other isotope!

Because neutrons have a relative atomic mass of 1 amu (the same as protons), isotopes do affect the relative atomic mass of elements as they are written in the periodic table. Ice cubes made of normal water (H2O) are less dense than liquid water. Ice cubes made with deuterated water (D2O), where the hydrogen atoms are hydrogen-2 atoms, sink in regular liquid water!

Chemical Compounds

A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) composed of atoms from more than one element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a compound.

There are four types of compounds, depending on how the constituent atoms are held together:

• Molecules held together by covalent bonds
• Ionic compounds held together by ionic bonds
• Intermetallic compounds held together by metallic bonds
• Certain complexes held together by coordinate covalent bonds

A chemical formula specifies the number of atoms of each element in a compound molecule, using the standard abbreviations for the chemical elements and numerical subscripts. For example, a water molecule has formula H2O indicating two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Many chemical compounds have a unique CAS number identifier assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service. Globally, more than 350,000 chemical compounds (including mixtures of chemicals) have been registered for production and use.

A compound can be converted to a different chemical substance by interaction with a second substance via a chemical reaction. In this process, bonds between atoms may be broken in either or both of the interacting substances, and new bonds formed.