Chemistry
Metals & non-metals
The great divide among the elements: how to spot metals and where the exceptions hide.
What you need first
Take a stainless steel spoon and put a wooden spoon next to it: the steel spoon shines, quickly gets warm on a hot pot, and can be bent, the wooden one cannot. Behind this difference lies the biggest divide in chemistry: almost every element is either a metal or a non-metal.
Typically metal
You can recognise metals by three typical properties: they shine, they conduct electricity and heat well, and they can be shaped without breaking. That is why cables are made of copper, pots of stainless steel, and foil of aluminium. Most elements in the periodic table are metals, and at room temperature almost all of them are solid. The one exception is mercury: it is liquid.
Non-metals: the opposites
Non-metals are the opposite: many of them are gases at room temperature, such as oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, and helium. Solid non-metals like sulfur do not shine and crumble when you try to shape them. In addition, non-metals usually insulate instead of conducting electricity.
Semi-metals and the map in the periodic table
A few elements sit in between: the semi-metals. The best known is silicon, which sits inside almost every computer chip and the vast majority of because it conducts electricity only under certain conditions. In the periodic table you find the metals on the left and in the middle, the non-metals at the top right, and the semi-metals form the border in between.
Exercises
0 of 6 solvedTime to try it yourself. You can't break anything, every attempt counts.
Which property is typical of metals?
Which of these elements is a non-metal?
Look at iron, copper, and oxygen. How many of them are metals?
Match each substance to the right category: metal, non-metal, or semi-metal.
Where do the metals sit in the periodic table?
Metals conduct electricity well, non-metals usually ….
Where this leads