The Group II Elements

ATOMIC AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

Trends in Atomic Radius

Atomic radius is half the distance between the nuclei of two touching atoms. Since group II
elements are all metals, their metallic radii are used.

The atomic radius increases as you go down the Group. The radius of an atom is governed by

 the number of layers of electrons around the nucleus

 the pull the outer electrons feel from the nucleus.

Compare beryllium and magnesium:

Be 1s22s2
Mg 1s22s22p63s2

In each case, the two outer electrons feel a net pull of 2+ from the nucleus. The positive
charge on the nucleus is cut down by the negativeness of the inner electrons.

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
This is equally true for all the other atoms in Group 2. The only factor which is going to
affect the size of the atom is therefore the number of layers of inner electrons which have to
be fitted in around the atom. Obviously, the more layers of electrons you have, the more
space they will take up - electrons repel each other. That means that the atoms are bound to
get bigger as you go down the Group.

Trends in First Ionisation Energy

First ionisation energy is the energy needed to remove the most loosely held electron from
each of one mole of gaseous atoms to make one mole of singly charged gaseous ions, in other
words, for 1 mole of this process:

Mg(s) → Mg+(g)

First Ionisation Energies

1000
900
800
700
1st IE / kJmol-1

600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Be Mg Ca Sr Ba

Notice that first ionisation energy falls as you go down the group. Ionisation energy is
governed by;

 the charge on the nucleus,

 the amount of screening by the inner electrons,
 the distance between the outer electrons and the nucleus.

As you go down the Group, the increase in nuclear charge is exactly offset by the increase in
the number of inner electrons. The outer electrons feel a net attraction of 2+ from the centre.
2
However, as you go down the Group, the distance between the nucleus and the outer
electrons increases and so they become easier to remove, therefore the ionisation energy falls.

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
Trends in Electronegativity

Electronegativity is a measure of the tendency of an atom to attract a bonding pair of

electrons. It is usually measured on the Pauling scale, on which the most electronegative
element (fluorine) is given an electronegativity of 4.0.

All of these elements have a low electronegativity. (Remember that the most electronegative
element, fluorine, has an electronegativity of 4.0.) Notice that electronegativity falls as you
go down the Group. The atoms become less and less good at attracting bonding pairs of
electrons. Imagining a bond between a magnesium atom and a chlorine atom, (thinking of it
as a covalent bond) the electron pair will be dragged towards the chlorine end because there
is a much greater net pull from the chlorine nucleus than from the magnesium one.

The electron pair ends up so close to the chlorine that there is essentially a transfer of an
electron to the chlorine and ions are formed. The large pull from the chlorine nucleus is why
chlorine is much more electronegative than magnesium is. Now compare this with the
beryllium-chlorine bond. The net pull from each end of the bond is the same as before, but 3
you have to remember that the beryllium atom is smaller than a magnesium atom. That means
that the electron pair is going to be closer to the net 2+ charge from the beryllium end, and so
more strongly attracted to it.

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The Group II Elements

In this case, the electron pair doesn't get attracted close enough to the chlorine for an ionic
bond to be formed. Because of its small size, beryllium forms covalent bonds, not ionic ones.
The attraction between the beryllium nucleus and a bonding pair is always too great for ions
to be formed.

Summarising the trend down the Group

As the metal atoms get bigger, any bonding pair gets further and further away from the metal
nucleus, and so is less strongly attracted towards it. In other words, as you go down the
Group, the elements become less electronegative. As you go down the Group, the bonds
formed between these elements and other things such as chlorine become more and more
ionic. The bonding pair is increasingly attracted away from the Group 2 element towards the
chlorine (or whatever).

Trends in Melting Point, Boiling Point, and Atomisation Energy

Melting points

You will see that (apart from where the smooth trend is broken by magnesium) the melting
point falls as you go down the Group.

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The Group II Elements
Boiling points

You will see that there is no obvious pattern in boiling points. It would be quite wrong to
suggest that there is any trend here whatsoever.

Atomisation energy

This is the energy needed to produce 1 mole of separated atoms in the gas state starting from
the element in its standard state (the state you would expect it to be in at approximately room
temperature and pressure).

And again there is no simple pattern. It looks similar to, but not exactly the same as, the
boiling point chart.

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The Group II Elements
REACTIONS OF THE GROUP 2 ELEMENTS WITH WATER

The Group 2 metals become more reactive towards water as you go down the Group.

Beryllium

Beryllium reacts with steam at high temperatures (typically around 700°C or more) to give
white beryllium oxide and hydrogen.

Be(s) + H2O(g) → BeO(s) + H2(g)

Beryllium has a strong resistant layer of oxide on its surface which lowers its reactivity at
ordinary temperatures. However, the oxide layer breaks up above 750°C and exposes the
beryllium metal surface below it, and so the protection then fails.

Magnesium

Magnesium burns in steam to produce white magnesium oxide and hydrogen gas.

Very clean magnesium ribbon has a very slight reaction with cold water. After several
minutes, some bubbles of hydrogen form on its surface, and the coil of magnesium ribbon
usually ‘floats’ to the surface. However, the reaction soon stops because the magnesium
hydroxide formed is almost insoluble in water and forms a barrier on the magnesium
preventing further reaction.

Calcium, strontium and barium

These all react with cold water with increasing vigour to give the metal hydroxide and
hydrogen. Calcium, for example, reacts fairly vigorously with cold water in an exothermic
reaction. Bubbles of hydrogen gas are given off, and a white precipitate (of calcium
hydroxide) is formed, together with an alkaline solution (also of calcium hydroxide - calcium
hydroxide is slightly soluble). The equation for the reactions of any of these metals would be:

The hydroxides aren't very soluble, but they get more soluble as you go down the Group. The
calcium hydroxide formed shows up mainly as a white precipitate (although some does
dissolve). You get less precipitate as you go down the Group because more of the hydroxide 6
dissolves in the water.

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
Looking at the enthalpy changes for the reactions

The enthalpy change of a reaction is a measure of the amount of heat absorbed or evolved
when the reaction takes place. An enthalpy change is negative if heat is evolved, and positive
if it is absorbed. If you calculate the enthalpy change for the possible reactions between
beryllium or magnesium and steam, you come up with these answers:

Both possible reactions are strongly exothermic, giving out almost identical amounts of heat.
However, the magnesium reaction is much faster. Similarly, if you calculate the enthalpy
changes for the reactions between calcium, strontium or barium and cold water, you again
find that the amount of heat evolved in each case is almost exactly the same (-430 kJ mol-1).

Looking at the activation energies for the reactions

The activation energy for a reaction is the minimum amount of energy which is needed in
order for the reaction to take place. It doesn't matter how exothermic the reaction would be
once it got started - if there is a high activation energy barrier, the reaction will take place
very slowly, if at all. When Group 2 metals react to form oxides or hydroxides, metal ions are
formed. The formation of the ions from the original metal involves various stages all of
which require the input of energy - contributing to the activation energy of the reaction.
These stages involve the input of:

 the atomisation energy of the metal. This is the energy needed to break the bonds
holding the atoms together in the metallic lattice.
 the first and second ionisation energies. These are necessary to convert the metal
atoms into ions with a 2+ charge.

After this, there will be a number of steps which give out heat again - leading to the
formation of the products, and overall exothermic reactions. The graph shows the effect of
these important energy-absorbing stages as you go down Group 2.

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The Group II Elements

Notice that the ionisation energies dominate this - particularly the second ionisation energies.
Ionisation energies fall as you go down the Group. Because it gets easier to form the ions, the
reactions will happen more quickly.

Summarising the reason for the increase in reactivity as you go down the Group

The reactions become easier as the energy needed to form positive ions falls. This is mainly
due to a decrease in ionisation energy as you go down the Group. This leads to lower
activation energies, and therefore faster reactions.

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The Group II Elements
REACTIONS OF THE GROUP 2 ELEMENTS WITH AIR

The reactions of the Group 2 metals with air rather than oxygen is complicated by the fact
that they all react with nitrogen to produce nitrides. In each case, you will get a mixture of the
metal oxide and the metal nitride.

The general equation for the Group is:

The familiar white ash you get when you burn magnesium ribbon in air is a mixture of
magnesium oxide and magnesium nitride (despite what you might have been told when you
were first learning Chemistry!).

The reactions with oxygen

Formation of simple oxides

On the whole, the metals burn in oxygen to form a simple metal oxide.

Beryllium is reluctant to burn unless it is in the form of dust or powder. Beryllium has a very
strong (but very thin) layer of beryllium oxide on its surface, and this prevents any new
oxygen getting at the underlying beryllium to react with it.

"X" in the equation can represent any of the metals in the Group. It is almost impossible to
find any trend in the way the metals react with oxygen. It would be quite untrue to say that
they burn more vigorously as you go down the Group. To be able to make any sensible
comparison, you would have to have pieces of metal which were all equally free of oxide
coating, with exactly the same surface area and shape, exactly the same flow of oxygen
around them, and heated to exactly the same extent to get them started.

What the metals look like when they burn is a bit problematical!

 Beryllium: There is no reference anywhere (text books or internet) to the colour of the
flame that beryllium burns with.
 Magnesium burns with a typical intense white flame.
 Calcium burns with an intense brick red flame.
 Strontium burns with an intense crimson flame.
 Barium burns with a pale green flame. 9

Formation of peroxides

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The Group II Elements
Strontium and barium will also react with oxygen to form strontium or barium peroxide.

Strontium forms this if it is heated in oxygen under high pressures, but barium forms barium
peroxide just on normal heating in oxygen. Mixtures of barium oxide and barium peroxide
will be produced.

The strontium equation would look just the same.

Trying to pick out patterns in the way the metals burn

There are no simple patterns. It would be tempting to say that the reactions get more vigorous
as you go down the Group, but it isn't true. The overall amount of heat evolved when one
mole of oxide is produced from the metal and oxygen shows no simple pattern:

If anything, there is a slight tendency for the amount of heat evolved to get less as you go
down the Group. But how reactive a metal seems to be depends on how fast the reaction
happens - not the overall amount of heat evolved. The speed is controlled by factors like the
presence of surface coatings on the metal and the size of the activation energy. The activation
energy will fall as you go down the Group because the ionisation energies of the metals fall.
In this case, though, the effect of the fall in the activation energy is masked by other factors -
for example, the presence of existing oxide layers on the metals, and the impossibility of
controlling precisely how much heat you are supplying to the metal in order to get it to start
burning.

Why do some metals form peroxides on heating in oxygen?

10
Beryllium, magnesium and calcium don't form peroxides when heated in oxygen, but
strontium and barium do. There is an increase in the tendency to form the peroxide as you go
down the Group.

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The Group II Elements
The peroxide ion, O22- looks like this:

Bringing a small 2+ ion close to the peroxide ion causes electrons in the peroxide ion to be
strongly attracted towards the positive ion.

We say that the positive ion polarises the negative ion. This works best if the positive ion is
small and highly charged i.e. a high charge density. Ions of the metals at the top of the Group
have such a high charge density (because they are so small) that any peroxide ion near them
falls to pieces to give an oxide and oxygen. As you go down the Group and the positive ions
get bigger, they don't have so much effect on the peroxide ion. Barium peroxide can form
because the barium ion is so large that it doesn't have such a devastating effect on the
peroxide ions as the metals further up the Group.

Why do these metals form nitrides on heating in air?

Nitrogen is fairly unreactive, but all these metals combine with it to produce nitrides, X3N2,
containing X2+ and N3- ions. Nitrogen is fairly unreactive because of the very large amount of
energy needed to break the triple bond joining the two atoms in the nitrogen molecule, N2.
When something like magnesium nitride forms, you have to supply all the energy needed to
form the magnesium ions as well as breaking the nitrogen-nitrogen bonds and then forming
N3- ions. All of these processes absorb energy. Energy is evolved when the ions come
together to produce the crystal lattice and this is known as lattice energy or lattice enthalpy.
The size of the lattice energy depends on the attractions between the ions. The lattice energy
is greatest if the ions are small and highly charged - the ions will be close together with very
strong attractions. In the whole of Group 2, the attractions between the 2+ metal ions and the
3- nitride ions are big enough to produce very high lattice energies. When the crystal lattices
form, so much energy is released that it more than compensates for the energy needed to 11
produce the various ions in the first place. The excess energy evolved makes the overall
process exothermic.

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
REACTIONS OF THE GROUP 2 ELEMENTS WITH COMMON ACIDS

Reactions with dilute hydrochloric acid

All the metals react with dilute hydrochloric acid to give bubbles of hydrogen and a
colourless solution of the metal chloride.

As you might expect for elements in this part of the Periodic Table, the reactions get more
vigorous as you go down the Group.

Reactions with dilute sulphuric acid

These are more complicated, because of the formation of insoluble sulphates.

Beryllium and magnesium

These are just like the reactions with dilute hydrochloric acid, and you have probably been
familiar with the reaction between magnesium and dilute sulphuric acid almost since you
started doing chemistry. Bubbles of hydrogen are formed, together with colourless solutions
of beryllium or magnesium sulphate.

For example:

Calcium, strontium and barium

Calcium sulphate is sparingly soluble, and you can think of strontium and barium sulphates
as being insoluble. That means that you will get a layer of insoluble sulphate on all of these
which will slow down the reaction or stop it entirely. In the calcium case, you will get some
hydrogen produced together with a white precipitate of calcium sulphate.

Reactions with nitric acid

When most metals react with most acids, what they are actually doing is reducing hydrogen
ions to hydrogen gas by adding electrons to the hydrogen ions. The metal is, of course,
oxidised to positive metal ions because it loses electrons. But nitrate ions are also easily
reduced to products like nitrogen monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. So metals reacting with
12
nitric acid tend to give oxides of nitrogen rather than hydrogen. If the acid is relatively dilute,
you tend to get nitrogen monoxide, although this immediately reacts with oxygen in the air to
make brown nitrogen dioxide. Concentrated nitric acid gives nitrogen dioxide.

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The Group II Elements
Beryllium

Beryllium has a strong oxide layer (rather like the more familiar aluminium) which slows
reactions down until it has been removed. Some sources say that beryllium doesn't react with
nitric acid. On the other hand, it is easy to find practical details for making beryllium nitrate
by reacting beryllium powder with nitric acid. One source uses semi-concentrated nitric acid,
and says that the gas evolved is nitrogen monoxide. What is happening is that whether it
reacts or not depends on the source of the beryllium (how it was manufactured). This is all so
uncertain that it seems hard to see how a question could be asked about it in an exam.

The other Group 2 metals

These will produce hydrogen from nitric acid provided the acid is very dilute, but even so, it
will be contaminated with nitrogen oxides. Colourless solutions of the metal nitrates will be
formed.

Taking magnesium as an example, if the solution is very dilute:

At moderate concentrations (and even with very dilute acid, this will happen to some extent):

And with concentrated acid:

13

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
SOLUBILITY OF THE HYDROXIDES, SULPHATES AND CARBONATES OF THE
GROUP 2 ELEMENTS IN WATER

Solubility of the hydroxides

 The hydroxides become more soluble as you go down the Group.

Magnesium hydroxide appears to be insoluble in water. However, if you shake it with water,
filter it and test the pH of the solution, you find that it is slightly alkaline. This shows that
there are more hydroxide ions in the solution than there were in the original water. Some
magnesium hydroxide must have dissolved.

Calcium hydroxide solution is used as "lime water". 1 litre of pure water will dissolve about 1
gram of calcium hydroxide at room temperature.

Barium hydroxide is soluble enough to be able to produce a solution with a concentration of

around 0.1 mol dm-3 at room temperature.

Solubility of the sulphates

 The sulphates become less soluble as you go down the Group.

The simple trend is true provided you include hydrated beryllium sulphate in it, but not if the
beryllium sulphate is anhydrous. The Nuffield Data Book quotes anyhydrous beryllium
sulphate, BeSO4, as insoluble , whereas the hydrated form, BeSO4.4H2O is soluble. (The Data
Books agree on this - giving a figure of about 39 g dissolving in 100 g of water at room
temperature.) Figures for magnesium sulphate and calcium sulphate also vary depending on
whether the salt is hydrated or not, but nothing like so dramatically. The reaction between
magnesium and dilute sulphuric acid gives lots of hydrogen and a colourless solution
of magnesium sulphate. Notice that you get a solution, not a precipitate, therefore the
magnesium sulphate is obviously soluble. Barium sulphate is formed as a white precipitate
during the test for sulphate ions in solution. The ready formation of a precipitate shows that
the barium sulphate is insoluble. (In fact, 1 litre of water will only dissolve about 2 mg of
barium sulphate at room temperature).

Solubility of the carbonates

 The carbonates tend to become less soluble as you go down the Group.

None of the carbonates is anything more than very sparingly soluble. Magnesium carbonate
(the most soluble one) is soluble to the extent of about 0.02 g per 100 g of water at room 14
temperature. Beryllium carbonate tends to react with water and so that might confuse the
trend. The trend to lower solubility is, however, broken at the bottom of the Group. Barium
carbonate is slightly more soluble than strontium carbonate.

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
The Usual Explanations

The usual explanation is in terms of the enthalpy changes which occur when an ionic
compound dissolves in water. Energy has to be supplied to break up the lattice of ions, and
energy is released when these ions form bonds of one sort or another with water molecules.
As you go down a Group, the energy needed to break up the lattice falls as the positive ions
get bigger. The bigger the ions, the more distance there is between them, and the weaker the
forces holding them together. Again as the positive ions get bigger, the energy released as the
ions bond to water molecules (their hydration enthalpies) falls as well. Bigger ions aren't so
strongly attracted to the water molecules. Since both of these important enthalpy terms fall as
you go down the Group, what matters in deciding whether the change becomes more
endothermic or more exothermic overall is how fast they fall relative to each other.

A sample calculation to make this clear

Here is an example of the sort of calculations you might do to work out the enthalpy change
of solution for sodium chloride and potassium chloride. In this case, we are defining lattice
enthalpy as the heat needed to convert 1 mole of crystal in its standard state into separate
gaseous ions - an endothermic change.

You can see that the enthalpy of solution changes from NaCl to KCl because the lattice
enthalpy and hydration enthalpy of the positive ion fall by different amounts.

 If the hydration enthalpy falls faster than the lattice enthalpy (as in this case), the net
effect is that the overall change becomes more endothermic (or less exothermic in
other possible cases where the total enthalpy change turns out to be negative).
 If the lattice enthalpy falls faster than the hydration enthalpy, the opposite happens -
the change will become less endothermic (or more exothermic).

What controls the relative rate of fall of the two terms?

15
It turns out that the main factor is the size of the negative ion.

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The Group II Elements
 For small negative ions like hydroxide, the lattice enthalpy falls faster than the
hydration enthalpy of the positive ions. That means that the enthalpy of solution will
become less positive (or more negative).
 For large negative ions like sulphate or carbonate, the hydration enthalpy of the
positive ions falls faster than the lattice enthalpy. In this case, the enthalpy of solution
will become more positive (or less negative).

Lattice enthalpy is governed by several factors including the distance between the negative
and positive ions. Where you have a big negative ion, this inter-ionic distance is largely
controlled by the size of that negative ion. Changes in the size of the positive ion don't make
as great a percentage difference to the inter-ionic distance as they would if the negative ion
was small. With sulphates, for example, the percentage increase in the inter-ionic distance as
you go from magnesium to calcium sulphate isn't as great as it would be with a smaller
negative ion like hydroxide. Since the percentage increase in inter-ionic distance isn't very
great, the change in the lattice enthalpy won't be very great either. The more endothermic (or
less exothermic) the enthalpy of solution is, the less soluble the compound. So sulphates and
carbonates become less soluble as you go down the Group while hydroxides become more
soluble. The enthalpy of solution figures, in kJ mol-1, for the Group 2 carbonates are:

MgCO3 -25.3

CaCO3 -12.3

SrCO3 -3.4

BaCO3 +4.2

The figures get progressively less exothermic, and at barium carbonate become endothermic.
That would seem to support the decrease in solubility as you go down the Group quite nicely.
Unfortunately, if you look at the solubility data, the trend is broken at the bottom of the
Group. Barium carbonate is more soluble than strontium carbonate and trying to correlate
solubility simply with the enthalpy change of solution doesn't work.

Introducing entropy changes

Entropy change is a measure of the amount of disorder in a system. Entropy is given the
symbol S. If a system becomes more disordered, then its entropy increases. In order to see
whether a change is possible or not, you have to think about a combination of the enthalpy
16
change and the entropy change. These can be combined mathematically to give an important
term known as free energy change.

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The Group II Elements

As an approximation, for a reaction to happen, the free energy change must be negative.
What happens if the enthalpy change is positive as for example when sodium chloride
dissolves in water (+3.9 kJ mol-1)? As long as the entropy change is positive enough, it is
possible to get a negative value for free energy change. In the sodium chloride case, you don't
have to have very much increase in entropy to outweigh the small enthalpy change of +3.9 kJ
mol-1.

Originally, the sodium and chloride ions were arranged in a very tidy way in the crystal
lattice - their entropy was low. When you dissolve the crystal in water, the entropy increases
as the ions and water molecules become completely jumbled up i.e. they become much more
disordered than they were originally. The entropy of the system for group II compounds
must fall when they dissolve in water, in other words, the solution in water is more ordered
than the original crystal and water.

This happens because the water molecules become more ordered when the compound
dissolves in them. Instead of milling around pretty much at random, they become attracted to 17
the ions present and arranged around them. This is particularly effective if the ions are small
and highly charged and so the effect is greatest for the positive ions at the top of the Group,
and gets less as you go down. It is also much more important in Group 2 than in Group 1

| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
where the ions only carry one positive charge. That means that you have two entropy effects
to consider. There is the increase in disorder as the crystal lattice breaks up, but a
corresponding increase in order in the water, which varies depending on the sizes and
charges of the ions present. But the entropy change will also be varying as you go down the
Group. At the top, where you have small 2+ ions, the overall entropy change in the system
must be negative. The system as a whole becomes more ordered when the compound
dissolves because of the way the water molecules become organised around the positive ions.
That negative entropy change is going to be enough to wipe out the effect of the exothermic
enthalpy of solution. The bigger ions have less organising effect on the water molecules. The
entropy change is becoming less negative (or perhaps even at this stage, positive). That's
going to tend to make the compounds more soluble. The overall effect is a complex balance
between the way the enthalpy of solution varies and the way the entropy change of solution
alters. At barium carbonate, the effect of increasing entropy must be enough to make it more
soluble than strontium carbonate.

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| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
THERMAL STABILITY OF THE GROUP 2 CARBONATES AND NITRATES

The effect of heat on the Group 2 carbonates

All the carbonates in this Group undergo thermal decomposition to give the metal oxide and
carbon dioxide gas. Thermal decomposition is the term given to splitting up a compound by
heating it. All of these carbonates are white solids, and the oxides that are produced are also
white solids. If "X" represents any one of the elements:

As you go down the Group, the carbonates have to be heated more strongly before they will
decompose. The carbonates become more stable to heat as you go down the Group. A small
2+ ion has a lot of charge packed into a small volume of space. It has a high charge
density and will have a marked distorting effect on any negative ions which happen to be near
it. A bigger 2+ ion has the same charge spread over a larger volume of space. Its charge
density will be lower, and it will cause less distortion to nearby negative ions.

The structure of the carbonate ion

The structure of a carbonate ion using "dots-and-crosses" is:

This shows two single carbon-oxygen bonds and one double one, with two of the oxygen
atoms carrying a negative charge each. In real carbonate ions all the bonds are identical, and
the charges are spread out over the whole ion, although concentrated on the oxygen atoms.
We say that the charges are delocalised. The next diagram shows the delocalised electrons.
The shading is intended to show that there is a greater chance of finding them around the
oxygen atoms than near the carbon.

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| Notes by TP Shumba
The Group II Elements
Polarising the carbonate ion

When this ion is placed next to a positive ion, the delocalised electrons in the carbonate ion
towards are attracted towards the positive ion. The carbonate ion becomes polarised.

If this is heated, the carbon dioxide breaks free to leave the metal oxide. How much you need
to heat the carbonate before that happens depends on how polarised the ion was. If it is highly
polarised, you need less heat than if it is only slightly polarised. The smaller the positive ion
is, the higher the charge density, and the greater effect it will have on the carbonate ion. As
the positive ions get bigger as you go down the Group, they have less effect on the carbonate
ions near them. To compensate for that, you have to heat the compound more in order to
persuade the carbon dioxide to break free and leave the metal oxide. In other words, as you
go down the Group, the carbonates become more thermally stable.

The effect of heat on the Group 2 nitrates

All the nitrates in this Group undergo thermal decomposition to give the metal oxide,
nitrogen dioxide and oxygen. The nitrates are white solids, and the oxides produced are also
white solids. Brown nitrogen dioxide gas is given off together with oxygen. Magnesium and
calcium nitrates normally have water of crystallisation, and the solid may dissolve in its own
water of crystallisation to make a colourless solution before it starts to decompose. If "X"
represents any one of the elements:

As you go down the Group, the nitrates also have to be heated more strongly before they will
decompose. The nitrates also become more stable to heat as you go down the Group. The
small positive ions at the top of the Group polarise the nitrate ions more than the larger
positive ions at the bottom.

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| Notes by TP Shumba