Better Understanding Of Element Property Trends printable pdf download

Better Understanding Of Element Property Trends

Better Understanding of Element Property Trends

Description of the TrendsTube

Teaching Aid Rationale & Product

Property trend patterns - physical, electrical, or chemical aspects of adjacent

elements of the periodic table - increase or

decrease in different directions, but often not

strictly continuous. The main trends are:

ionization energy, electron affinity, metallic

character, atomic radius, electronegativity,

and melting point. Chemists may use them to

predict an element's properties by its position

relative to others, a common application of the

periodic table in general.

Charts (as left) that

are intended to help students to learn the direction of

these trends are commonly found in books and

online. The trending among elements is most

evident in the Main Group: blocks s & p (right).

These blocks, in the common periodic table, are

separated by the transition metals (circled in the

chart below) which trend less among the elements

there. The trends chart we have developed only

uses the Main Group elements for those reasons.

Currently approved (by IUPAC) column

numbers are 1-18 across the periodic

table. Older periodic tables often

identified those of the Main Group

with a Roman numeral and an 'a'

suffix - Ia, IIa, IIIa, IVa, Va, VIa, VIIa,

and VIIIa. In addition to the 1-18, we

use them, since they define the Main

Group properly, and also provide the

number of valence electrons, with the

first, Ia, introducing a new shell, and

the last, VIIIa, being the filled shell of

the Noble Gases.

Ionization energy, a very important trend, is the amount of energy needed to

remove from the outer (valence) shell, the most loosely bound electron, the

valence electron, of an isolated gaseous atom to form a cation (more protons

than electrons).

Better Understanding Of Element Property Trends