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Nonmetals tend to gain electrons during chemical reactions, in contrast to metals which tend to donate electrons. This behavior is related to the stability of electron configurations in the noble gases, which have complete outer shells as summarized by the duet and octet rules of thumb, more correctly explained in terms of valence bond theory. [67]
The chemical elements can be broadly divided into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals according to their shared physical and chemical properties.All elemental metals have a shiny appearance (at least when freshly polished); are good conductors of heat and electricity; form alloys with other metallic elements; and have at least one basic oxide.
The original approach to conduction and nonmetals was a band-structure with delocalized electrons (i.e. spread out in space). In this approach a nonmetal has a gap in the energy levels of the electrons at the Fermi level. [1]:
Strongly electronegative atoms (such as halogens) often have only one or two empty electron states in their valence shell, and frequently bond with other atoms or gain electrons to form anions. Weakly electronegative atoms (such as alkali metals ) have relatively few valence electrons , which can easily be lost to strongly electronegative atoms.
Non-metals, on the other hand, are characterized by having an electron configuration just a few electrons short of a stable configuration. As such, they have the tendency to gain more electrons in order to achieve a stable configuration. This tendency is known as electronegativity. When a highly electropositive metal is combined with a highly ...
The direction of the red arrow indicates the order of state filling. Although it is sometimes stated that all the electrons in a shell have the same energy, this is an approximation. However, the electrons in one subshell do have exactly the same level of energy, with later subshells having more energy per electron than earlier ones. This ...
Nonmetals show more variability in their properties than do metals. [1] Metalloids are included here since they behave predominately as chemically weak nonmetals.. Physically, they nearly all exist as diatomic or monatomic gases, or polyatomic solids having more substantial (open-packed) forms and relatively small atomic radii, unlike metals, which are nearly all solid and close-packed, and ...
Generally, nonmetals have more positive E ea than metals. Atoms whose anions are more stable than neutral atoms have a greater E ea. Chlorine most strongly attracts extra electrons; neon most weakly attracts an extra electron. The electron affinities of the noble gases have not been conclusively measured, so they may or may not have slightly ...