Periodic Table Research Paper

periodic table is arguably one of the most important developments in the history of all science. Development of the table spanned over more than 2000 years beginning with the proposal by Aristotle around the year 330 BC that there is limited number of elements (though at the time he referred to them as roots) that make up everything in the universe, though he believed these elements to be simply "water, fire, earth, and air" and made no further contributions to the development and understanding of the table and its properties.
The true beginnings of the modern periodic table are found in 1669 when alchemist Hennig Brand became the first person to discover an element, phosphorus. This was accomplished accidentally through an alchemical process using urine meant to produce the fabled philosopher’s stone that was highly sought after during the time period. The actual chemical process that occurred involved the reaction of sodium phosphate and organic compounds found in urine at the high heat at which brand was boiling the urine. This reaction produced carbon monoxide and elemental phosphorus which then condensed and solidified in the form of the white phosphorous allotrope, which has a tetrahedral structure, is insoluble in water, and is highly thermodynamically unstable. He named the element, though he was not aware it was an element at the time, phosphorous meaning “light-bearing” as white phosphorous glows strongly when it is exposed to air. A few years later, English alchemist and scientific investigator Robert Boyle was able to independently isolate phosphorus through an improved process by adding sand to the urine causing a reaction in which sodium phosphate and carbon from the urine reacted with silica forming sodium metasil...

... middle of paper ...

...ct that metals usually have high melting points and nonmetals usually have low melting points, although carbon, a nonmetal, has the highest melting point of all elements. Metallic characteristics decrease moving left to right across the table and increase moving down the periodic table while the opposite is true of nonmetallic

characteristics. Degree of metallic character is related to an element’s ability to lose electrons while degree of nonmetallic character is related to an element’s ability to gain electrons. The final periodic trend, ionization energy, the energy required to remove an electron from an atom, generally increases when moving across the table from left to right and decreases when moving down the table. Because their valence shells are full, noble gases have very high ionization energies with the greatest ionization energy belonging to Helium.