Periodic Table Classification and Properties

Vocabulary flashcards covering metals, metalloids, non-metals, and their specific sub-groups based on periodic table lecture notes.

Metals

Elements making up the majority of the periodic table on the left side and center that are shiny, good conductors of heat and electricity, malleable (can be bent), and ductile (can be made into wires).

Alkali Metals

Extremely reactive elements never found in nature in their pure forms; they are silver colored, shiny, low density, and have 1 outer-level electron.

Alkaline Earth Metals

Elements that are slightly less reactive than alkali metals, silver colored, and denser than alkali metals.

Transition Metals

Metals with a moderate range of reactivity and a wide range of properties that are mostly shiny, good conductors of heat and electricity, and have higher densities and melting points.

Post-Transition Metals

Metals that conduct heat and electricity, are softer and more brittle, and have lower melting and boiling points than transition metals.

Lanthanides

A sub-group of transition metals that are shiny and reactive.

Actinides

A sub-group of transition metals that are all radioactive, making them unstable.

Metalloids

Elements sitting along the zigzag staircase line separating metals from nonmetals that have properties of both groups, look shiny like metals, are brittle, and act as semiconductors (conducting electricity only under certain conditions).

Non-Metals

Elements mostly found on the upper right side of the periodic table (plus hydrogen on the top left) that are poor conductors of heat and electricity and are often dull and brittle if solid.

Reactive Non-Metals

Non-metals that readily gain or share electrons (more electronegative), are poor conductors of heat and electricity, and are dull and brittle.

Halogens

Very reactive non-metals with 7 valence electrons (needing one more for a stable outer shell) that are poor conductors of heat and electricity and tend to form salts with metals (e.g. $NaCl$).

Noble Gases

Unreactive gases (inert due to full valence shells) that are colorless and odorless at room temperature and found in the Earth's atmosphere in small amounts.