Chemical Reactions
Metals, non-metals and the reactivity series
Rank metals by the activity series, work out the ion a metal or non-metal forms from its electron shells, and say how each band of the series is won from its ore and kept from corroding.
A gold ring found in a river bed comes up shining. An iron nail left in the same river bed comes up as a flake of rust. Nothing about the water treated them differently; the difference is in the metals. Ranking metals by how eagerly they react — with oxygen, with water, with acid, with each other's salts — is what the activity series does, and almost everything else in this chapter follows from where a metal sits on it.
Why a metal gives electrons away
A noble gas has a full outermost shell and hardly reacts. Other atoms behave as though that is what they are after. Sodium has a single electron in its outer shell and is rid of it easily, leaving a positive ion; chlorine is one short of a full shell and takes one, becoming a negative ion. The two ions then hold each other by electrostatic attraction, and what you have is an ionic compound.
Worked example
Four metals — A, B, C and D — are dropped into copper sulfate solution. A and B displace the copper; C and D do nothing. B also displaces A from its salt. Rank them.
A and B are above copper; C and D are below it.
Displacing a metal from its salt solution is the test for being the more reactive of the two.
Try it together
Sodium and chlorine meet. Work out what each atom ends up as.
Answer with a bare number each time.
1.A sodium atom has 11 protons and 11 electrons, arranged 2, 8, 1. It gives away the single outer electron. How many electrons has it left?
Have a go
Have a go on your own. Sodium chloride is made of sodium ions and chloride ions holding each other. What is a compound made this way called?
Ready to practice?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.