Properties of Metals
Metals exhibit various properties depending on their physical and chemical behavior. The metals are widely used in our day-to-day life as well as in industrial purposes depending on their properties. Here are the following physical and chemical properties shown by metals:
Physical Properties of Metals
- Lustrous: Metals are lustrous in nature, but what does it mean? Lustrous means shiny surface for example gold and silvery have metallic luster thus they are used for making jewelry. Also, utensils made of metals have a metallic luster.
- Good conductor of electricity and heat: Metal is a good conductor of electricity and heat. This is the reason we used metallic utensils for cooking as they conduct heat to the food. Also, we used metallic wire as metals are good conductors of heat. The best conductor of heat and electricity are copper and silver, while mercury and lead are poor conductors.
- High density and melting point: All the metals have a high melting point as well as it has high density. Here density refers to the mass of a substance per unit volume and melting point refers to the temperature at which solids start melting.
- Malleable and Ductile: Metals are malleable means they can be beaten into a sheet by hammer or rolling. Also, metals are ductile in nature i.e. they can be easily stretched into a wire when they get pulled. Gold is the most ductile metal that can stretch up to 1 km with the use of 1 gm of gold only.
- Sonorous: The property is shown by the metal when it strikes a hard surface producing a sound called sonorous. Earlier school bells were made of metals due to the sonority property.
- Solid State: At room temperature, metals exist in a solid state except for mercury which exists in a liquid state at room temperature. Also, metals are hard in nature and their hardness varies from metal to metal.
Chemical Properties of Metals
- Easily corrodible: Metals have the property to get easily corrode, corrosion refers to a process when the metal is naturally converted into a stable form like oxide, sulfide, or hydroxide that leads to the destruction of the metal. For example, rusting of iron metal.
- Can lose electrons: Metals can form positive charge ions by losing their electron when reacting with a non-metal.
- Form basic oxides: Metal can form basic oxides when reacting with oxygen. While some metal oxides like aluminum oxide and zinc oxide show both acidic and basic behavior. These types of oxides are called amphoteric oxides.
- Have low electronegativities: Electronegativity is referred to the ability of the atom to attract electrons to form a chemical bond. So high electronegativity means it will attract electrons very easily, and low electronegativity means less ability to attract electrons. Thus, metals have low electronegativity.
Properties of Metals and Non-Metals
Metals and Non-metals have different properties and reactivity with other elements. This difference between the physical and chemical properties of elements depends on their position in the periodic table. The physical properties of substances (or elements) include tendencies like conductivity, density, malleability, ductility, lustrousness, physical state, etc. Moreover, the chemical properties of elements can include reactions with other elements and compounds, in order to check their reactivity, also include electronegativity, etc. Here is the periodic table showing metals, non-metals, and metalloids at different position and are highlighted with different colors, as shown below: