Metal Buttons

In chemistry, a metal (Greek: Metallon) is an element that readily forms positive ions (cations) and has metallic bonds. Metals are sometimes described as a lattice of positive ions surrounded by a cloud of delocalized electrons. more...

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The metals are one of the three groups of elements as distinguished by their ionisation and bonding properties, along with the metalloids and nonmetals. On the periodic table, a diagonal line drawn from boron (B) to polonium (Po) separates the metals from the nonmetals. Elements on this line are metalloids, sometimes called semi-metals; elements to the lower left are metals; elements to the upper right are nonmetals.

A more modern definition of metals is that they have overlapping conduction bands and valence bands in their electronic structure. This definition opens up the category for metallic polymers and other organic metals, which have been made by researchers and employed in high-tech devices. These synthetic materials often have the characteristic silvery-grey reflectiveness of elemental metals.

The traditional definition focuses on the bulk properties of metals. They tend to be lustrous, ductile, malleable, and good conductors of electricity, while nonmetals are generally brittle (for solid nonmetals), lack lustre, and are insulators.

Occurrence

Nonmetal elements are more commonplace on Earth than metallic elements are, but metals in fact constitute most of the periodic table. Some popular metals are aluminium, copper, gold, iron, lead, silver, titanium, uranium and zinc.

Chemical properties

Most metals are chemically unstable, reacting with oxygen in the air to form oxides over varying timescales (for example iron rusts over years and potassium burns in seconds). The alkali metals react quickest followed by the alkaline earth metals, found in the leftmost two groups of the periodic table. The transition metals take much longer to oxidise (such as iron, copper, zinc, nickel). Others, like palladium, platinum and gold, do not react with the atmosphere at all. Some metals form a barrier layer of oxide on their surface which cannot be penetrated by further oxygen molecules and thus retain their shiny appearance and good conductivity for many decades (like aluminium, some steels, and titanium). The oxides of metals are basic (as opposed to those of nonmetals, which are acidic), although this may be considered a rule of thumb, rather than an absolute condition.

Painting or anodising metals are good ways to prevent their corrosion.

Physical properties

Traditionally, metals have certain characteristic physical properties: they are usually shiny (they have "lustre"), have a high density, are ductile and malleable, usually have a high melting point, are usually hard, and conduct electricity and heat well. However this is mainly because the low density, soft, low melting point metals happen to be reactive, and we rarely encounter them in their elemental, metallic form. Metals conduct sound well, that is, they are sonorous.

Read more at Wikipedia.org