Explain the relationship between the position of elements in the Periodic Table and:

Question

- electrical conductivity

- melting point

- boiling point

- reactivity

I'm doing some revision on Chemistry and I have a point on the syllabus which I can't really find information on in my textbook, notes we've written down in class and on the net (well, not where I've been seaching).

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

I'm not sure about electrical conductivity and boiling point.

But the melting points vary with the element's atomic number. The nobel gases have the lowest melting points whereas the elements with the highest melting points are less well defined; they vary. E.g. Carbon has a melting point of about 3800 degrees celsius, Tungsten about 3500, Chromium very close to 2000.

Reactivity relates to the ionisation energy of the elements. Ionisation is the energy required to remove electrons. Going across any period of the table, the first ionisation energy increases, showing that moving from left to right, there is less tendency to lose electrons. Going down any group of the table, ionisation energy decreases.

This decrese in ionisation energy in going down Groups 1 and 2 elements become more reactive. E.g. Li reacts fairly slowly with water, Na reacts quite vigorously and K reacts explosively.

Hope that helps.