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Chemistry / Re: What is the most and least metallic metals?
« on: Yesterday at 00:21:24 »
I believe silver is the most conductive of the metals (under standard conditions).
Linguistically, gold might be considered the fundamental metal, at least in written Chinese (traditional), where the symbols of all the metals include the symbol for gold (on the left):
Gold: 金
Silver: 銀
Iron: 鐵
Rhenium: 錼
Sodium: 鈉
Brass: 黃銅
etc. etc.
Others have already mentioned metalloids, or semi-metals, like silicon, germanium, arsenic etc., which are elements that have some metallic characteristics, but are not actually metallic. Which would be a reasonable case for "least metallic metals." It is also important to point out (as Bored Chemist did) that elements (and compounds) can be metallic under some temperatures and pressures, and non-metallic at others.
What I will add to the discussion of "least metallic metals" is that there are some materials that have a metallic electronic structure in some directions/dimensions, but not others. A good example of this is graphite--within each graphene plane, electrons are fully delocalized in an extended pi system, but there is limited electronic interactions between the layers (so we can say graphite is a 2D metal). There are also 1D metals, like extended cumulenes/polyalkyenes or polythiazyl (-S-N-S-N-S-N-S-N-). Perhaps a 1D metal is a good candidate for "least metallic"
Linguistically, gold might be considered the fundamental metal, at least in written Chinese (traditional), where the symbols of all the metals include the symbol for gold (on the left):
Gold: 金
Silver: 銀
Iron: 鐵
Rhenium: 錼
Sodium: 鈉
Brass: 黃銅
etc. etc.
Others have already mentioned metalloids, or semi-metals, like silicon, germanium, arsenic etc., which are elements that have some metallic characteristics, but are not actually metallic. Which would be a reasonable case for "least metallic metals." It is also important to point out (as Bored Chemist did) that elements (and compounds) can be metallic under some temperatures and pressures, and non-metallic at others.
What I will add to the discussion of "least metallic metals" is that there are some materials that have a metallic electronic structure in some directions/dimensions, but not others. A good example of this is graphite--within each graphene plane, electrons are fully delocalized in an extended pi system, but there is limited electronic interactions between the layers (so we can say graphite is a 2D metal). There are also 1D metals, like extended cumulenes/polyalkyenes or polythiazyl (-S-N-S-N-S-N-S-N-). Perhaps a 1D metal is a good candidate for "least metallic"