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From left to right in the periodic table, the nonmetals can be divided into the reactive nonmetals and the noble gases. The reactive nonmetals near the metalloids show some incipient metallic character, such as the metallic appearance of graphite, black phosphorus, selenium and iodine. The noble gases are almost completely inert.
The dividing line between metals and nonmetals can be found, in varying configurations, on some representations of the periodic table of the elements (see mini-example, right). Elements to the lower left of the line generally display increasing metallic behaviour; elements to the upper right display increasing nonmetallic behaviour.
Nonmetallic character increases going from the bottom left of the periodic table to the top right. The first periodic table to become generally accepted was that of the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869; he formulated the periodic law as a dependence of chemical properties on atomic mass .
For example, the periodic table in the Encyclopaedia Britannica recognizes noble gases, halogens, and other nonmetals, and splits the elements commonly recognized as metalloids between "other metals" and "other nonmetals". [103] On the other hand, seven of twelve color categories on the Royal Society of Chemistry periodic table include nonmetals.
Some textbooks use the term nonmetallic elements such as the Chemistry of the Non-Metals by Ralf Steudel, [25]: 4 which also uses the general definition in terms of conduction and the Fermi level. [ 25 ] : 154 The approach based upon the elements is often used in teaching to help students understand the periodic table of elements, [ 26 ...
The metallic elements in the periodic table located between the transition metals to their left and the chemically weak nonmetallic metalloids to their right have received many names in the literature, such as post-transition metals, poor metals, other metals, p-block metals, basic metals, and chemically weak metals.
Iodine, the rarest of the nonmetallic halogens, is a metallic looking solid that is moderately reactive, and has a density of 4.933 g/cm 3. It melts at 113.7 °C to a brown liquid and boils at 184.3 °C to a violet-coloured vapour. It has an orthorhombic crystalline structure with a flaky habit.
Most elements have a mixture of metallic and nonmetallic properties, [9] and can be classified according to which set of properties is more pronounced. [10] [n 3] Only the elements at or near the margins, lacking a sufficiently clear preponderance of either metallic or nonmetallic properties, are classified as metalloids. [14]