Metals

- An alloy homogeneous mixture of a metal with one or more elements

- Use for
o iron and steel railway bridges, buildings, cars, household items, containers, pipes
(malleable and strong). Mild steel 0.2% very malleable rolled into sheets.
Structural steel (0.3-0.6%) have higher tensile strength. 3-4% carbon = pig iron very
hard but brittle. It is cheaper but requires to be galvanised (coated with zinc) to
prevent corrosion.
o aluminium buildings, aeroplanes, motor cars (resists corrosion)
o copper electrical wiring (due to high electrical conductivity), pipes, jewellery
o zinc galvanising iron, pains, casings for dry cells
o lead car batteries, plumbing and in solder
- carbon makes steels harder e.g. steel the higher the percentage of carbon, the harder
- Chromium increases resistance to corrosion
- Sulphur increases corrosion rate
- Tungsten retains strength at high temperatures
- Alloy
o Brass 50% cu and zinc (hard)
o Bronze 90% cu with tin (hard, resists corrosion)
o Solder 30-60% tin with lead (low melting point) takes time to solidify.
o Coin 75% cu with nickel
- Metals have lustrous appearance, good electrical and thermal conductivity. Their melting
temperatures and densities vary; some are good conductors of heat, other mediocre; some
are soft others are hard; some have high tensile strength, others are brittle; some corrode
easily (magnesium and iron), others do not (platinum and gold).
- Electrical conductivity current passing through 1 metre cube of substance with 1 votl
applied.
- Thermal conductivity energy transmitted per second through 1 metre cube of substance
when there is 1 degrees Celsius temperature difference
- Hardness based upon size of indentation
- Tensile strength 0 measure of how well a material resists bending, twisting or stretching.
- Resistance to corrosion the relativeness of a metal under normal atmospheric conditions
(aluminium and zinc have a layer of coating that protect them)
- Malleability ability to be beaten or rolled into thin sheets
- Ductile able to be drawn into thin sheets.
- Oldest known metal gold
- First metal to be extracted from an ore copper
- Most abundant metal in crust- aluminium

Energy considerations:

- Metals are extracted from the ore by reacting them with some other substance
- Chemical reactions are used to extract the metal from its ore. Chemical reactions - release or
absorb heat. Most metals require the input of considerable amounts of energy (heat).
Energy is needed to mine the ore, purify or concentrate it.
 - Energy is necessary to extract a metal because it is chemically combined and to break the
bonds, energy is required.

Reactivity of metals:

Metals vary from extremely reactive to no reaction at all. Their reaction will be influenced by
oxygen, water and acids.

Oxygen:

- All metals except silver, platinum and gold react with oxygen to form oxides.
- Li, Na, K, Ca, Ba react rapidly at room temperature. Mg, al, Fe, Zn react slowly but vigorously
if heated. Sn, Pb, Cu react slowly and only if heated.
- Metals which burn in air form white solids which have none of metals physical property.
- Al and Zn become coated with a layer of oxide which prevents further reaction
- Others form a powdery surface layer of oxide which does not impede further reactions
- Cu forms a black surface layer of copper oxide

Water:

- Li, Na, K, Ca, Ba react with water at room temperature

- Mg, Al, Zn, Fe react with steam at higher temperatures
- Sn, Pb, Cu, Ag, Au, Pt do not react at all
- When reactions occur with water, the products are hydrogen gas and metal hydroxide.
With steam, the product is oxide, not hydroxide

Reaction with Dilute Acid:

- All metals except silver, gold and platinum react with dilute HCl and H2SO4 form hydrogen
gas. However, Na, K Li, Ca and Ba react with the water in the acid.
- Tin and lead react slowly unless acid is heated.
- Acids are substances which produce hydrogen ions H+. This ion is the species which reacts
with the metal.
- Balanced formulae equation:

Zn(s) + 2HCl(aq) ZnCl2(aq) + H2(g)

- Net ionic equation shows actual ionic species that undergoes change in reaction:
Zn(s) + 2H+ (aq) Zn2+ (aq) + H2(g)
The chloride ions are spectator ions and are thus omitted. They are included in the complete
ionic equation

Summary of metals reactivity from left to right (ignoring transition metals)

the pace of reactivity to oxygen decreases
the reactivity with water decreases
The reactivity to acid at RPT decreases
Metal + Water Hydroxide + Hydrogen. (the moderately reactive form OXIDE instead of
hydroxide, while unreactive metals form nothing).
Metal + Oxygen Metal oxide
 Metal + Acid Hydrogen + salt

The reactions of metals with these substances require the metals to loose electrons (+ ions). The
process of neutral species undergoing reaction to form ions is called ionisation.

- Most active metals are hard to extract since their compounds are very stable
- Least active metals can occur free in nature and their compounds are unstable.

Oxidation and Reduction and Half Reactions

- Oxidation is loss of electrons

- Reduction means gain of electrons
- Oxidising agent electron acceptor, reducing agent electron donor
- The lower a metal is in the activity series, the more difficult to oxidise.
- Any metal in the activity series will displace any metal below it from a solution of its salts.
E.g. if zinc is placed in CuSO4, then zinc sulphate is formed and copper deposited.
- Redox reactions reduction-oxidation reactions
- E.g in Mg + O MgO, Mg looses two electrons to positive ion (cation) and oxygen gains two
electrons to negative ion (anion)
- Half reactions reactions which describe oxidation and reduction.
Al Al3+ + 3e- (Oxidation)
2H+ + 2e- H2 (Reduction)
Must balance the number of electrons only in the overall equation
2Al(s) + 6H+ 2Al3+ + 3H2

Alkalis:

A few metals (Zn, aluminium, chromium, lead, and tin) react with alkalis. A base is a compound
which contains the oxide or hydroxide ion or in which solution forms the hydroxide ion. An alkali is a
soluble base.

- Some examples of bases NaOh, cuO and so on. NaOH, Ba(OH)2 are alkalis.
- When a metal reacts with a base, it forms hydrogen gas and salt solution (combination of
the metal with oxygen e.g. aluminate AlO2- ) e.g. Zn + 2NaOH Na2ZnO2 + H2

Activity Series

- Order of reactivity of metals to find metals in the order of decreasing reactivity known as
activity series.
- N, K; Li, Ca, Ba; Mg, Al, Fe, Zn; Sn, Pb; Cu; Ag, Au, Pt
- Activity series lists metals in order of decreasing ease of losing electrons (thus left looses
electrons more easily)
- Order of decreasing ease of oxidation and increasing ease of reduction.

Relative Reactivity, Periodic Table and Ionisation Energy

Group 1 metals are the most reactive, followed by group2,, 3, 4 and transition metals. Groups 1 and
2 reactivity increases from top to bottom.
- Reactivity of metals link with ionisation energy. Reactivity is in order of decreasing ease of
loosing electrons.
- The ionisation energy of an element is the energy required to remove an electron from a
gaseous atom of the element. The lower the ionisation energy, the easier it is to remove an
electron.
- The reactivity of metals increase as their ionisation energy decreases.
- Relativity of metals and ease of extraction:
o Left to right of activity series, metal ions become easier to reduce. The further to the
right of the activity series a metal is, the more easily it can be extracted from its
ores. Copper can be extracted by roasting the ore in the air. sulphides of metals such
as tin require the heating of ore in air, till oxide forms and then reheating it with
carbon. More reactive metals such as K and Al, require electrolysis of ionic
compounds.
o The easier it is to extract an ore, the earlier the metal was discovered and used. Thus
the Copper Age, Bronze age and Iron age followed as such. Now a days, Aluminium
(through electrolysis is used in tools). Aluminium is expensive. Activity series from
left to right, is the most recently discovered to the earliest discovered.)
o Economic aspects abundance, location, cost of extraction, cost of transportation
affect the cost of metal. Also the conservation of energy while extracting metals
(recycling)
o Recycling metals
Less energy
Finite natural resources conserved
Less rubbish to be disposed
o Copper is leached from the ore (adding acid (mixed with water) to it to form its ion),
sometimes an oxidising reagent is required.
o Aluminium ore, alumina is added to it to dissolve mineral in the ore. Molten
aluminium (from high current keeps aluminium molten) is then collected.
Relative Atomic mass
o The relative atomic mass of an element is the average mass of the atoms present in
the naturally occurring element relative to the mass of an atom of the carbon 12
isotope taken as exactly 12.
o The relative atomic mass of an element is NOT the mass of an atom of that element.
Relative molecular mass
o The relative molecular mass of a compound is the mass of a molecule of the
compound relative to the mass of an atom of the carbon 12 isotope taken as exactly
12.
o The molecular weight of a compound is the sum of the atomic weights of the atoms
as given in the molecular formula. E.g. Waters molecular weight = 2 x 1 + 16 = 18
Relative formula mass
o for some compounds, the chemical formulae are used. Thus NaCL 1:1 ratio. = 23 +
35.5
Mole

- For any element, when we take the mass in grams, which is numerically equal to the atomic
weight, then it contains 6.02 x 1023
- If for any compound, we take the mass in grams which is numerically equal to the molecular
weight, then it contains 6.02 x 1023
- A mole of a substance is the quantity which contains as many elementary units as there are
atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon 12 isotope.
- A mole of an element is numerically equal to the atomic weight of the substance.
- The molar mass of a substance is the mass of a mole of the substance.

- Composition: % A in a compound =
x 100
- The volume of 1 mole of gas is called the molar volume. At temp. 25 OC and a pressure of
100kPa, the molar volume is 24.79. One mole of ANY gas will always occupy 24.79

Empirical formula: of a compound tells us the ratio in which the atoms are present.
Molecular formula: tells us how many of each type of atom are present in a molecule of the
compound.
o To determine empirical formula, find the number of moles (mass of metal divided by
the atomic mass): number of moles (mass of non-metal divided by the atomic mass)
A chemical equation tells us the ratios by mass in which substances react or are formed in a
reaction.

Dalton, Gay-Lussac and Avogadro

- Daltons atomic theory:

o Matter is composed of tiny indivisible particles called atoms
o All atoms of the one element are identical.
o Chemical reactions consist of combing, separating or rearranging atoms
- Gay-Lussac proposed the law of combining volumes:
o When measured at constant temperature and pressure, the volumes of gasses
taking part in chemical reaction show simple whole number ratios to one other. E.g.
100mL of hydrogen reacts with 50mL of oxygen to form 100mL steam.
- Avogadro proposed (hypothesis): when measured at the same temperature and pressure,
equal volumes of gasses contain the same number of molecules.

Periodic Table:

- Early nineteenth century Dobereiner discovered triads groups of elements with very
similar properties, such as lithium, sodium and potassium
- John Newlands proposed a law of octaves where elements were arranged in increasing
atomic weight, the eighth element started a new line. His law required similarities when
none existed
- Mendeleev (forerunner of the modern Periodic Table) arranged elements in the order of
increasing atomic weight and placed elements with similar properties under one another to
 obtain a table. Mendeleev recognised that there were elements that had not been
discovered, for which he left gaps.
- Ramsay added another group to the periodic table.
- Moseley determined the atomic number of each element and used this to arrange the
elements.

Physical properties:

- Atomic radius:
o Decrease from left to right
o Increase going down
- Melting point:
o Decreases from left to right
o Increases down the group
- Ionisation energy: energy required to remove an electron from a gaseous atom of an
element. The first ionisation energy is the energy required to remove one element from the
neutral atom, the second ionisation energy is the energy required to remove 2nd electron
and so on.
o The second ionisation energy is always greater than the first 0 requires more energy
to remove an electron from a positive species than from a neutral species. The third
ionisation energy is greater than the second.
o If an ionisation energy drastically increases from consecutive electrons, then it
means that the electron has been removed from the next shell
o Noble gas has the highest ionisation energy
o Increases from left to right
o Decreases going down any group
- Metallic character
o Decreases from left to right
o Increases down the group
- Nature of compounds
o Left to right ionic compounds to covalent
o Down covalent to ionic
- Electronegativity: of an element is a measure of an atom to attract electrons.
o If the difference in electronegativities of two elements is greater than 1.5, then the
elements will form an ionic compound.
o Increases from left to right
o Decreases down a group
- Electrical and thermal conductivities
o Decrease from left to right.