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lunartexan · 2 years ago

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🧑🏻‍🔬THE PERIODIC TABLE OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS👩🏿‍🔬

(Note: I am not a chemist, just someone who enjoys science, if I made any errors please let me know, thank you and I hope you enjoy reading this)

Ever wonder about this bad boy? While here's a quick crash course on it and some of it groups!

What is it?

The Periodic Table is an arrangement of rows and columns used to display and predict what elements exist and their properties based upon where they fall.

The farther right and down you go, the "heavier" the elements get as they have more Protons, going from 1 Proton for Hydrogen to as of now 118 Protons for Oganesson. Each Collum, excluding the Transition Metals and Rare Earth Series, have similar chemical properties.

Along with this, excluding the Transition Metals, as you go left to right the number of Valence Electrons increases by 1 up to 8 before flipping around back to 1. Valence Electrons can be thought of as the Hands of Atoms, being how they interact and react with each other; a free valence electron spot being a place another atom can bond to like an open hand, while an occupied valence electron spot is like a full hand slapping away other potential electrons.

Each valence group, along with the Transition Metals, builds up the base of all of Chemistry and the universe. So lets have a look at a few of them, shall we?

The Alkaline-Earth Metals

The Alkaline-Earth Metals are the two first columns of the Periodic table, and are often sub-divided into the Alkaline Metals and Alkaline Earth Metals. Both groups however do share some properties, often being softer metals that are extremely reactive.

Most famously, they react with water to produce Hydrogen and some heat amount of heat. On the more reactive side such as Lithium and Sodium, this means upon contact with water they will explode, sending red hot metal flying with a violent blast. On the less extreme end such as Magnesium or Calcium, they can be used as ways to produce Hydrogen in small quantities.

Not only are they reactive with water, but also air, oxidizing rapidly in the air and in the case of Magnesium having an extremely violent and energetic reaction when lit on fire.

They also all like to bond with chlorine to produce salts such as Sodium chloride, or more commonly known as humble Table Salt.

After the neat uniformity of the Alkaline-Earth metals, we reach,

The Transition Metals

The Transition Metals are not transgender metals, but rather a large collection of various metals that don't as neatly fit into rows or columns as the other Elemental groupings. Most notably, they have no Valence Electron Shell patterns, meaning you often have to search out the specific Transition Metal you are working with to know how many spots it has still open. They are by far the largest single group of elements within the Periodic Table, and chances are if you think of a metal it will be a transition metal.

It includes some famous stars such as Iron, Gold, Copper, Titanium, Lead, Zinc, Osmium, Tungsten, and Silver. As you can tell from the diverse cast of elements, all of these have wildly varying properties; take the strength and hardness of Iron and Tungsten compared Gold and Zinc as an example.

However they are not totally dissimilar as they are all still metals, meaning they share the properties of Metals. These include high thermal and electrical conductivity, liking to gobble up ions, are highly ductile (the ability to be pulled and bent into wire without breaking), form Cations (positively charged ions), and other such Metal traits.

Truly a party of metals, followed by,

The Other Metals

As the name would suggest, these are some of the other metals and can be thought of as an extension of the Transition Metals.

However their proximity to the other groups gives a few of these metals such as Aluminum more unique chemical behaviors compared to the standard transition metals, which is why sometimes you'll see some disagreement and debate about which ones, if any, should be placed into the next group,

The Metalloids

The Metalloids border between the Metals and the Non Metals, and as such are unique in having properties of both Metals and Non Metals.

Most famous of the Metalloids is arguably Silicon, which makes of the base of the modern world through its semiconductor properties in circuit boards and chips like the one bring used to allow you to read these very words.

Another famous, or perhaps infamous, Metalloid is Arsenic, used in as many poisoning murders for its toxic lethality as paintings and dyes for its beautiful vibrant green hue when turned into a pigment.

And if Arsenic is a bit too deadly for your liking, Gallium is always an option, used in old vacuum tube era computing and lighting. Along with its vintage past, it also has a melting point of 85.58°F or 29.76°C, just shy of room temperature; meaning if you hold a piece of Gallium in your hand, it will melt into a liquid - and unlike Mercury, it is non toxic making it far safer to play with, although it does stick to glass and stain objects so be careful if you do play with it to not let it touch something you don't want getting stained.

And as hinted just before, let us introduce the one and only,

The Non Metals

The Non Metals are a small but extremely unique and important group. All of these elements as the name would suggest sharing the properties of being Non Metals, meaning they are all for the most part poor thermal and electrical conduct, have poor ductility, and form Anions (negatively charged ions).

If you are biologist of any kind, you may also notice this group contains many elements crucial for organic life; the three most important of which without doubt being Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen.

Along with Nitrogen and a few other elements, these elements firm the basis of all life on Earth. From the air you breathe being a Nitrogen-Oxygen mix, to your cells being based on Carbon, to the very DNA that created you. All of it based on Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen.

And while Oxygen may have taken the honor of the name of Oxidation, it has nothing on the next group,

The Halogens

The Halogens, due to missing just one election to be totally stable, are some of the most violently reactive elements on the entire Periodic Table, with Fluorine even known to be able to eat through glass if given enough time.

It might be surprising to hear then that the Halogens also produce some of the most chemically stable compounds known on Earth, such as Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), A.K.A., Teflon. This is because when these elements create compounds they become stable, meaning to break them apart you need an equal amount of energy to do so, and the energy requirement for Halogen compounds is often massive, making them chemically hardy.

Outside of Teflon and eating glass, the less reactive of the Halogens also are used in medicine as a way to sterilize an area. Most commonly and famously used would be Iodine, which not only has a beautiful purple hue, but is also used in surgeries to sterilize equipment and areas before operations, saving countless lives from infections every day.

In contrast to the reactive Halogens, we have next,

The Nobel Gases

The Nobel Gases like any true Nobels with wealth and status don't like to get involved in the common peasantry's squabbles. In the world of chemicals and elements, this means their full valence electron shells don't stubbornly refuse to chemically react with any other element, and the compounds they do form are often unstable and want to fall apart back into a Nobel Gas and whatever common element it wound up stuck with.

While this lack of reacting does make them rather boring from a reaction perspective, it does make them extremely useful when you do not want things chemically reacting by acting as a buffer between other elements; most easily seen in high end car lights, often filled with Xeon or other Nobel Gases to make sure no matter how hot the light gets it doesn't react chemically and degrade.

Along with protecting lights, they can also be used for lights. Due to their unreactive nature in even high energy environments, it makes them perfect to be used to fill a sealed glass tube that has power shot through it; otherwise known as a Neon Light. However despite the name, not all Neon Lights are filled with Neon, only the orange-red ones are. Other colors such as blues and greens come from the other Nobel Gasses depending on their spectrum emissions.

And on light and degradation, last but not least we have,

The Rare Earth Metals

The Rare Earth Metals can be and often are split into two smaller groups, the upper Lanthanide series and the lower Actinide series.

The upper Lanthanides are all rather chemically similar, meaning they can often be treated somewhat interchangeably in a chemical sense. Their most notable use is without a doubt their ferro magnetic properties, making some of the most powerful magnets on Earth barring electro-magnets. Neodymium magnets are by far the most famous of them, being known to be able to leap across across tables and smash fingers if not handled carefully, while holding up hundreds of pounds of weight.

In contrast, the lower Actinide series is the domain of many of the Radioactive elements and sees the boundary line between the natural and artificial elements. All of them are radioactive to various degrees with decreasing half life lengths.

It is here Thorium and Uranium is found, being the heart of both terrifying bombs and the cleanest sources of energy known to mankind. Beyond Uranium, all the elements are artificial and must be made by humans in breeder reactors.

Despite their association with atom bombs and nuclear reactors, many of these elements also have far more mundane uses. Americium is used in common household Smoke Detectors, saving untold numbers of lives and dollars in property through early warnings of smoke and fire. Other ones are used by NASA and other space agencies in Radioisotope thermoelectric generators or R.T.G.s, used to power spacecraft like Voyager 2 and the Mars Curiosity Rover thousands of miles away from Earth where conventional solar panels would be too heavy, unwieldy, and inefficient so far away from the Sun.

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