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The alkali metals dissolve slowly in liquid ammonia, forming ammoniacal solutions of solvated metal cation M + and solvated electron e −, which react to form hydrogen gas and the alkali metal amide (MNH 2, where M represents an alkali metal): this was first noted by Humphry Davy in 1809 and rediscovered by W. Weyl in 1864.
Rubidium is the first alkali metal in the group to have a density higher than water. On Earth, natural rubidium comprises two isotopes: 72% is a stable isotope 85 Rb, and 28% is slightly radioactive 87 Rb, with a half-life of 48.8 billion years – more than three times as long as the estimated age of the universe.
Of the 26 "monoisotopic" elements that have only a single stable isotope, all but one have an odd atomic number—the single exception being beryllium. In addition, no odd-numbered element has more than two stable isotopes, while every even-numbered element with stable isotopes, except for helium, beryllium, and carbon, has at least three.
All isotopes of francium decay into astatine, radium, or radon. [7] Francium-223 also has a shorter half-life than the longest-lived isotope of each synthetic element up to and including element 105, dubnium. [8] Francium is an alkali metal whose chemical properties mostly resemble those of caesium. [8]
Lithium metal is soft enough to be cut with a knife. It is silvery-white. In air it oxidizes to lithium oxide. [10] Its melting point of 180.50 °C (453.65 K; 356.90 °F) [13] and its boiling point of 1,342 °C (1,615 K; 2,448 °F) [13] are each the highest of all the alkali metals while its density of 0.534 g/cm 3 is the lowest.
The chemistry of caesium is similar to that of other alkali metals, in particular rubidium, the element above caesium in the periodic table. [28] As expected for an alkali metal, the only common oxidation state is +1. It differs from this value in caesides, which contain the Cs − anion and thus have caesium in the −1 oxidation state. [5]
It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable isotope is 23 Na. The free metal does not occur in nature and must be prepared from compounds.
The alkaline earth metal strontium (38 Sr) has four stable, naturally occurring isotopes: 84 Sr (0.56%), 86 Sr (9.86%), 87 Sr (7.0%) and 88 Sr (82.58%). Its standard atomic weight is 87.62(1). Only 87 Sr is radiogenic ; it is produced by decay from the radioactive alkali metal 87 Rb , which has a half-life of 4.88 × 10 10 years (i.e. more than ...