![]() ![]() Transition metals are generally hard, have high melting and boiling points, and have high density. When you think of your stereotypical metal, you’re thinking of a transition metal. ![]() Magnesium and beryllium are used as structural materials due to their low density, but are being phased out due to other undesirable properties (extreme flammability⁵ and toxicity⁶, respectively). ![]() They have low density (but higher than the alkali metals) and are fairly soft (but harder than alkali metals). They’re reactive, but nowhere near as reactive as the alkali metals (calcium, for example, fizzes and heats water, but doesn’t start fires). The alkaline earth metals are less extreme versions of the alkali metals. These elements are metallic (obviously), soft, have low melting points, and are unbelievably reactive.³ This reactivity is caused by a burning desire to lose one valence electron to become like the most recent noble gas.⁴ If you want to know what the deal is with their chemistry, that’s the key. With the exception of hydrogen, the elements in group 1 are the alkali metals. Let’s see some of the groups we need to think about: In any case, if two things have the same number of valence electrons, they’ll tend to do the same things to satisfy the octet rule. If you’re not sure what that means, you’ll need to visit the tutorial that describes this. Don’t worry: You don’t need to know the names of every group.²Įlements in the same group of the periodic table have remarkably similar properties (particularly chemical properties) due to the fact that they have the same number of valence electrons, and similar electron configurations. For example, elements in group 2 are called the alkaline earth metals, while those in group 17 are the halogens. The groups on the periodic table (a term that’s interchangeably used with “ families“) consist of the elements in each column of the periodic table¹. In addition to the stuff that you just learned, there are lots of other ways you can divide up the periodic table. It’s almost universally the case that elements are broken into the main block, the transition metals (the green ones only), and the ones at the bottom (seriously). I’ve never heard a chemist refer to the elements at the bottom as “inner transition metals” (I had to look it up) and there’s even some disagreement as to whether the term “outer transition metals” even exists. When speaking of the elements, chemists usually use the terms above. Figure 2 gives a clearer idea of the terms that are actually used: Though the above is all correct, it’s also not what chemists usually say when referring to these elements. Together, the inner and outer transition metals comprise a larger group simply called the “transition metals.”
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