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Silicon already shows some incipient metallic behavior, particularly in the behavior of its oxide compounds and its reaction with acids as well as bases (though this takes some effort), and is hence often referred to as a metalloid rather than a nonmetal. [63] Germanium shows more, and tin is generally considered a metal. [19]
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.
A metalloid is an element that possesses a preponderance of properties in between, or that are a mixture of, those of metals and nonmetals, and which is therefore hard to classify as either a metal or a nonmetal. This is a generic definition that draws on metalloid attributes consistently cited in the literature.
Lists of metalloids differ since there is no rigorous widely accepted definition of metalloid (or its occasional alias, 'semi-metal'). Individual lists share common ground, with variations occurring at the margins. The elements most often regarded as metalloids are boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony and tellurium.
Periodic table extract showing the location of the post-transition metals. Zn, Cd and Hg are sometimes counted as post-transition metals rather than as transition metals. The dashed line is the traditional dividing line between metals and nonmetals. The symbols for the elements commonly recognized as metalloids are in italics. The status of ...
Silicon and germanium, both metalloids, each can form +4 ions. Tin and lead both are metals , while flerovium is a synthetic, radioactive (its half life is very short, only 1.9 seconds) element that may have a few noble gas -like properties, though it is still most likely a post-transition metal.
An alternative in metallurgy is to consider various malleable alloys such as steel, aluminium alloys and similar as metals, and other materials as nonmetals; [20] fabricating metals is termed metalworking, [21] but there is no corresponding term for nonmetals. A loose definition such as this is often the common usage, but can also be inaccurate.
This line has been called the amphoteric line, [2] the metal-nonmetal line, [3] the metalloid line, [4] [5] the semimetal line, [6] or the staircase. [2] [n 1] While it has also been called the Zintl border [8] or the Zintl line [9] [10] these terms instead refer to a vertical line sometimes drawn between groups 13 and 14.