Monday, 21 December 2020

Chemistry - Module 1: Properties of Matter

2.1 - Physical Properties

- The physical properties of a substance are its characteristics we can observe or

measure without changing it into a di erent substance. e.g melting point and
boiling point.

- The chemical properties are the ones associated with chemical changes or
chemical reactions it undergoes when it is mixed with other substances or
exposed to light or heat. They involve the change of substances

Homogenous and Heterogenous:

- Homogenous means uniform composition throughout

- Heterogenous means non uniform composition throughout

- Colour is also a good indicator of the substance

- Magnetism can be used to identify non magnetic and magnetic substances from
each other

- Particle size can be used to separate solids of di erent size using a sieve.

Melting and Boiling points:

- The melting point of a solid is the lowest temperature when a solid changes into a
liquid

- A pure substance has a de nite melting point at normal pressure

- The melting point for a pure substance is “sharp” whereas the melting point for a
mixture has a range of temperatures. This can be used as a way of testing the
purity of a substance

- Standard pressure is 100.0 kilopascal and the Standard Atmospheric Pressure is

101.3 kPA

- The freezing point is the highest temperature for when a liquid can be converted
into a solid

- The boiling point of a liquid is the lowest point when it starts to boil and starts to
change from a liquid to bubbling and vapour. Boiling points are dependent on
pressure

- The normal boiling point is at 100.kPA

- Volatile means easily converted to a vapour or that evaporation occurs quite

rapidly

- Non volatile means that it converts to a vapour slowly

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- A vapour is a gas that is easily lique ed or condensed and is close to the boiling
point

- Density is the amount of mass per unit volume

- Density = mass/volume

2.2 - Using physical properties to separate mixtures

Separation Techniques:
- Filtration: used to separate solids and liquids by ltering o the liquid

- Evaporation to Dryness: when solid is dissolved in liquid, the liquid is boiled o to

leave only solvent

- Distillation: process in which the solution or mixture of a liquid is boiled and the
vapour is condensed back into another liquid

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- Immiscible: when liquids are mixed they do not form a homogenous mixture

2.3 - Gravimetric Analysis

- It is used for determining the quantities of substances present in a mixture

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2.4 - A survey of the elements

Occurrence of the Elements:

- Most of the elements in nature are compounds mostly oxygen and nitrogen

- Melting and boiling points are used for identifying speci c pure elements

2.5 - The Periodic Table

- The elements with similar properties are placed into the same columns

- The vertical columns are called groups there are 18 in total

- The elements in group 3 to 12 are called transitional metals

- The other groups are called main group elements

- Group 1 are called alkali metals

- Group 2 are called alkaline earth metals

- Group 17 are called the halogens

- Group 18 are called the noble gases or inert gases

- Periods are the horizontal rows in the periodic table

- The non metals are B, Si,Ge, As, Sb, Te, Po

3.1 - An Atom

- A nucleus is the core of the atom and is extremely dense. It consists of protons
and neutrons and has an overall positive charge.

- The nucleus is surrounded by an cloud of electrons which have negative charges

- Nucleon is used to describe protons or neutrons

- The mass number is also known as the nucleon number

- Z is the atomic number and tells us the amount of electrons or protons in an

element

- A is the mass number and tells us the amount of protons and neutrons in an
element

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3.2 - Isotopes

- Isotopes are atoms of an element that have di erent amounts of neutrons in their
nucleus.

- They have the same atomic number but have di erent mass numbers

- The relative abundance of an element is the percentage of that element in the

naturally occurring environment

- Isotopes of the same element have the same chemical properties and very similar
physical ones

3.3 - Unstable Isotopes

- Radioactivity is the spontaneous emission of radiation that occurs with certain

isotopes and arises because some isotopes are unstable

- For some elements all isotopes are radioactive and for some elements only a few

- These are called radioactive isotopes or radioisotopes and unstable isotopes

Types of Radiation Emitted:

- Alpha rays or Alpha particles are relatively heavy particles with low penetrating
power and are composed of a helium nucleus. They are positively charged

- Beta particles are lighter particles with higher penetrating power and are
composed of an electron. They are negatively charged

- Gamma rays are like x rays with the highest penetrating power. They hold no
charge

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Alpha Emitting Isotopes:

- Equations that show radioactive disintegration are called nuclear equations

- Alpha radiation emits a helium nucleus which is compromised of 2 protons and 2

neutrons

Beta Emitting Isotopes:

- The particle emitted is an electron

- The electron does not come from the electron cloud but instead is a neutron
decomposes into a proton and a neutron

Why are some isotopes unstable:

- In the nucleus there are two types of forces:

• Electrostatic repulsions between protons which are long range

• Mass-mass attractions between protons and neutrons as a kind of gravitational

force and are short ranged

- The balance within these forces keep the nucleus intact

- When an atomic masses greater than 80 the mass-mass attractions are too weak
for the long ranged repulsions

- If an element has an atomic number larger than 83 (Bismuth) then it is a

radioisotope

- For lighter nuclei there is a zone of stability with a speci c neutron to proton ratio.

- If the isotope is above the n:p ratio then it is a beta emitter

- If the isotope is less than the n:p ratio then it is an alpha emitter

Half-Life of unstable isotopes:

- The half life of a radioisotope is the time required for half of atoms in a sample to
undergo radioactive decay

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3.4 - Energy Levels for Electrons

Electron Con gurations:

- The arrangement of electrons in any given atoms is called its electron
con guration

- According to the Bohr model the electrons are arranged in shells or energy levels
which can only hold a certain amount of electrons in each shell

- The nth energy level can hold 2 x n^2 electrons

Stable Electron Con gurations:

- The driving force for chemical reactivity and the ability for atoms to lose gain or
share electrons is due to wanting to achieve a stable electron con guration of the
nearby noble gas

- The electrons in the highest energy level are called valence electrons

- The last shell or energy level is called the valence shell

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3.5 - The Periodic Table

3.6 - Orbitals and Sublevels

- An alternative and more accepted solution to the Bohr theory is the orbitals and
sub level theory

- An orbital is a volume of space in which one or two electrons may randomly and
freely move

- The orbitals surround the nucleus

- The rst energy level is a sphere called the s orbital

- The second energy level consists of four orbitals to hold 8 electrons, the rst one
is a larger spherical orbital and the other three are in the shape of 2 pears joined
stem to stem and they are called p orbitals

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Orbital Notation:

3.7 - Atomic Emission Spectroscopy

- Atoms normally do not emit light however when they are given extra energy they
can be made to emit light

- If you heat atoms to a high temperature above 1500 C some of the electrons get
excited and move into higher energy levels

- After a short time the electrons move back into their original energy levels

- During this process excess energy is released in the form of visible light, ultra
violet or infrared

- The energy emitted when an atom falls back into the ground state is the same as
what it absorbed when it was raised to the excited state

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- If we break the light into separate wavelengths using a prism, the emissions will
occur at speci c discrete wavelengths

- The patter of lines at di erent wavelengths is called the emission spectrum of the
element

- Each wavelength in the spectrum corresponds to the energy required to excite a

particular electron from the ground state to the excited state

- Measuring and studying the mission spectra of elements is called atomic

emission spectroscopy

3.8 - Flame Tests

- The high temperature of the ame decomposes and the atoms of one of the
elements give the ame its distinctive colour

- The ame colour can be used to identify the element in a sample for analysis

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- The elements that produce distinctive ame colours do so because their atoms
have one electron transition that occurs far more frequently than any other

3.9 - Bohr, Schrödinger and Atomic Structure

- In 1913 Bohr proposed a theory that could quantitatively explain the emission
spectra of hydrogen and a few other elements

- The Bohr Theory was that electrons move around the nucleus in xed orbits

- When they absorb energy they move to higher energy levels and when the emit
energy they fall back into lower energy levels

- Incorporated planks quantum theory which states electrons have certain discrete
energies and the atom had distinct energy levels corresponding to the radius

- In following years the idea was developed that the electron was not just a particle
but also a wave

- The Schrödinger equation is the probability of nding the electron at any

particular location around the nucleus. It applies wave mathematics to develop
the equations

- When applied to atoms with more than one electron it leads to the idea of sub
levels and sets of orbitals

4.1 - Melting Point and Physical State

- Periodicity is the regular recurrence of events or properties

- A substance is a solid if its melting point is greater than room temperature (23 C)

- A substance is a liquid if its melting point is less than room temperature but its
boiling point is greater than room temperature

- A substance is a gas if its boiling point is less than room temperature

- There are gases on the right side of the periodic table

4.2 - Atomic Radius

- Atomic radius increases down any group of the periodic table

- Atomic radius decreases from left to right across any period of the periodic table

- There are more protons and more electrons going across a period and therefore
the electromagnetic force is increased making the atomic radius smaller

- When going down a group the atomic radius increases

- The energy of the outermost electrons also increases because they are in higher
energy levels

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- The two factors increasing nuclear charge and increasing nuclear energy tend to
cancel each other out

- The screening a ect is the decrease in the electrostatic force between the
nucleus and the outermost electron brought about by completely lled electron
shells in between

4.3 - Ionisation Energy

- When an atom loses or gains an electron it becomes an electrically charged

species known as an ion

- The process of losing an electron is known as ionisation energy

- The rst ionisation energy of an element is the energy required to remove an

electron from a neutral gaseous atom of the element

- The lower the ionisation energy the easier it is to remove an electron

- Each element has a several ionisation energies

- The second ionisation energy os always greater than the rst as it is harder to
remove an electron from an positively charged species

Ionisation energy and the periodic table:

- In going across any period the rst ionisation energy increases

- Going down a group ionisation energy

- When going across, the rst ionisation energy increases due to higher
electrostatic forces due to the increasing amounts of protons and electrons which
make it harder to separate electrons

- When going down, the rst ionisation energy decreases due to the electrons
being far away from the nucleus

4.4 - Electronegativity

- The electronegativity of an element is a measure of the atom to attract bonding

electrons towards itself in compounds

- The higher the electronegativity the stronger the attraction of the atom for
bonding electrons

- Rough measure of an atoms ability to form a negative ion

- Going across a period the atoms get smaller so the ability to attract an electron to
it gets stronger

- Going down a group the atoms get bigger and along with the screening e ect the
pulling power of the nucleus decreases thus electronegativity decreases

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4.5 - Metallic character and reactivity with water

- Going left to right across a period there is a decrease of metallic character

- Going down the ground in the middle of the periodic table, there is an increase of
metallic character

- All group 1 metals react with water with reactions becoming more vigorous as you
go down

- In group 2:

• Beryllium does not react

• Magnesium reacts with steam

• All others react with cold water

- In groups 1 and 2 reactivity with water increases from the top to the bottom

- When metals react with water they form hydrogen gas and metal hydroxide

- The larger the atomic radius the more reactive the element

- This is due to weaker electrostatic forces which makes it easier to lose an

electron

4.6 - Summary of trends in the periodic table

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5.1 - Achieving Noble Gas Configurations

- Atoms can achieve noble gas con gurations by:

• Outright transfer of electrons from one atom to another to form ions which
results in ionic bonding

• Sharing electrons between adjacent atom with each one considering to own the
shared electron known as covalent bonding

5.2 - Formation of ions: Ionic Bonding

- In sodium chloride sodium tends to lose one electron and give up its electron to
chlorine

- By giving up electrons both the ions achieve stable electron con gurations

- The strong electrostatic attraction between positive and negative ions hold the
ions together in bonds

- In ionic compounds that are no discrete molecules just an in nite array of positive
and negative ions

- The formula for ionic compounds are empirical which means that they are a ration
rather than the actual number

5.3 - Ionic Bonding and the Periodic Table

- Group 1 metals are singly charged cations

- Group 2 metals are doubly charged cations

- Group 16 forms doubly charged anions

- Group 17 forms singly charged anions

- Groups 1 and 2 only form ionic compounds whereas group 16 and 17 can form
covalent compounds as well

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- The transition metals lose electrons to form ions

- The elements that are 3 places away from noble gases may form ions, aluminium
generally does boron never does and nitrogen and phosphorus do on rare
occasions

- The valency of an element tells us the charge of the ion

5.4 - Naming Simple Ionic Compounds

- Binary compounds are compounds which only contain 2 elements

- Ionic binary compounds are named with the positive ion rst and then the
negative ion

- The positive ion has the same name as the element

- The negative ion is changed to have ‘ide’ at the end

- When metals have multiple valencies they are represented with roman numerals
according to the valency

- They can also be represented by using “ous” for the lower valency and “Ic” for
the higher valency such as ferrous and ferric

- In polyatomic ions they have atoms from two or more elements

- These ions act as a separate unit when forming compounds

5.5 - Covalent Bonding

- A covalent bond is a bond between pairs of atoms by sharing electrons

- For example two chlorine atoms share an electron to achieve the con guration of
argon

- Each atom considers that it owns the shared pair

- The shared pair of atoms occupy a volume of space that surrounds both atoms

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- By moving around both nuclei they hold the atoms together and form a chemical
bond

- A way to describe covalent bonding are electron dot structures or diagrams

- They consist of the element and the valence electrons shown as dots

- The pairing of the electrons can be shown by a circle or a line to represent single,
double or triple bonds

- Substances that are made up of simple covalent molecules are called covalent
molecular substances

- A molecular formula tells us each type of atom in a molecule of the substance

- Covalent bonding occurs when both of the elements forming the compound need
to gain electrons to attain noble gas con gurations

5.6 - Drawing Electron-dot structures

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5.7 - Ionic or Covalent Bonding and Electronegativity

- For some pairs of elements they can either form ionic or covalent compounds

- To gure out what compounds form we consider electronegativity

- Electronegativity is the ability of an atom to attract bonding electrons

- To form an ionic compound an atom must have a higher electronegativity than the
other

- If the atoms have similar attractions for electrons they are more likely to end up
sharing electrons instead

- If the di erence in electronegativity is greater than 1.5 then it is ionic if it is less

then it is covalent

5.8 - Valency and Position in the Periodic Table

5.9 - Naming Covalent Binary Compounds

- The normal name for the rst element and ide for the second

- The atom with lower electronegativity (to the left of the table) is rst

- There are pre xes such as mono, di and tri to denote the amount of atoms

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5.10 - Properties of Ionic and Covalent Molecular

Substances

Properties of ionic substances:

- Melting a ionic substance means breaking up the orderly arrangement of atoms

- Due to the high electrostatic forces there is a lot of energy required to do this

- Boiling an ionic substance means producing a vapour of well separated ion pairs

- If a force is applied to ionic substances, the orderly arrangement shifts causing

the ions of the same charge to come closer and then repel causing the whole
substance to shatter

- This is why ionic crystals are brittle

- Solid ionic compounds cannot conduct electricity as the ions are in an orderly
arrangement and are unable to move towards an charged electron

- When an ionic substance is melted or dissolved in water, the orderly arrangement

is broken which allows it to move towards electrodes of the opposite charge

Properties of covalent molecular substances:

- The bonding forces holding atoms together within a covalent molecule are very
strong

- The forces between one molecule and its neighbour are quite weak and they are
known as intermolecular forces

- Boiling involves separating molecules and due to the weak intermolecular forces
covalent molecular substance have a low boiling point

- The strength of intermolecular forces varies between molecular compounds

- The stronger the intermolecular forces, the higher the boiling point and melting
point

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- Because the weak intermolecular forces are easy to overcome, it is easily
distorted making covalent molecular substances soft

- Because covalent molecules are neutral species they are unable to conduct
electricity except for a few which react with water and form ions

5.11 - Covalent Network Solids

- Covalent network solids are solids in which the covalent ending extends
inde nitely throughout the whole crystal

- They are also known as covalent lattice solids

- The term lattice refers to an in nitely orderly arrangement of particles

- There are no recognisable molecules in a covalent lattice solid

- This is an example of carbon with atoms overlapping in a particular formation to

form diamond, the lines have no physical reality and just showcase a covalent
bond

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- When covalent lattices melt they break up the one big covalent lattice crystal into
separate smaller ones which can move independently

- Therefore melting covalent lattices involves breaking up covalent bonds that are
very strong

- This requires a lot of energy and therefore covalent lattices have a very high
melting point

- Covalent lattices do not conduct electricity as they do not have ions and the
electrons are not free to move around with an exception of graphite

5.12 - Metallic Bonding

- Metals with the exception of mercury are all solids at room temperature

- Metals have relatively high melting point and are fairly hard

- They are all good conductors of electricity

- Metallic structure or metallic bonding consists of a 3 dimensional array of positive

ions held together by a sea of delocalised electrons

- The valence electrons break away from their atoms leaving behind cations

- The electrons are then delocalised and move around through the lattice being
shared by all the positive ions, this provides the bonding that holds metals
together

- Strong electrostatic attraction of the delocalised electrons and positive ions hold
the metal together

- The ability of the delocalised electrons to move freely through the lattice makes
the metal a good conductor of electricity

- Electric current through a metallic wire is a ow of electrons

- Metals are malleable and ductile

- When shear force is applied to metals, the electrons are able to adjust to the
change of positive ions and keep the bonding intact

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5.13 - Solids Summarised

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