Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
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 ...
The above table reflects the hybrid nature of metalloids. The properties of form, appearance, and behaviour when mixed with metals are more like metals. Elasticity and general chemical behaviour are more like nonmetals. Electrical conductivity, band structure, ionization energy, electronegativity, and oxides are intermediate between the two.
In 1802 the term "metalloids" was introduced for elements with the physical properties of metals but the chemical properties of non-metals. [194] However, in 1811, the Swedish chemist Berzelius used the term "metalloids" [195] to describe all nonmetallic elements, noting their ability to form negatively charged ions with oxygen in aqueous ...
In 1891, Walker published a periodic "tabulation" with a diagonal straight line drawn between the metals and the nonmetals. [14] In 1906, Alexander Smith published a periodic table with a zigzag line separating the nonmetals from the rest of elements, in his highly influential [15] textbook Introduction to General Inorganic Chemistry. [16]
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.
Another common classification is by degree of metallic or nonmetallic behaviour and characteristics. Elements in the vicinity of where the metals and nonmetals meet are sometime classified as metalloids or an equivalent term. These two to three classes are commonly marked by differing background colors in the periodic table.
The nonmetals are divided into four classes that complement a four-fold division of the metals, with the noble metals treated as a subset of the transition metals. The metalloids are treated as chemically weak nonmetals, in a manner analogous to their chemically weak frontier metal counterparts.