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Scientific Contributions To The Periodic Table

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38 views3 pages

Scientific Contributions To The Periodic Table

Uploaded by

Divyesh
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Scientific Contributions to the Periodic Table

Chemists had long known that certain elements behaved similarly to one another in
chemical reactions and in their physical properties. This pattern provided a way of
constructing the periodic table that is now used by all chemists worldwide.

Ask most scientists who discovered the periodic table, and the answer will almost certainly
be Dmitri Mendeleev. Dmitri Mendeleev is hailed the creator of the modern periodic table.
A few other chemists before Mendeleev were investigating patterns in the properties of the
elements that were known at the time.

Some of these chemists include:


 Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois who built an early form of
the periodic table called a telluric helix. His periodic table was the first
to arrange the chemical elements in order of atomic mass.
 John Newland who noticed that every eighth element
had similar properties as he continued to build on the
idea of developing the periodic table based on the
elements atomic mass. Therefore, he identified a
recurring pattern among the elements.
 Julius Lothar Meyer who published a version of the periodic
table with the elements arranged with similar chemical and
physical properties.

Dmitri Mendeleev

In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev knew of 63 elements and wrote the names and
properties of these elements on small cards. Building on the ideas of his
contemporaries, he constructed a table of rows and columns. He placed
the 63 elements horizontally according to their atomic masses and
vertically according to the properties. He believed in the periodicity
(repetition) of the properties of the elements and this arrangement placed
elements with similar properties in the same columns.

With this organisation complete, Mendeleev proposed the periodic law:


‘Elements have properties that recur or repeat according to their atomic masses.
Previous scientists had attempted to organise all of the elements in a logical order, but
Mendeleev’s innovation was to leave ‘holes’ that he attributed to undiscovered elements.
The properties of these undiscovered elements could be predicted from his first periodic
table.

One of Mendeleev’s predictions was for the element below silicon, which he
called ‘eka-silicon’. Eka-silicon is now known as germanium. When the
element germanium was discovered its properties compared remarkably
well with Mendeleev’s predictions. The table shows Mendeleev’s predicted
properties of eka-silicon (Es) compared with the actual properties of
germanium (Ge).

Eka-silicon: Mendeleev’s Germanium: properties as


Property
predictions measured
Colour Grey Grey-white
Atomic Mass 72 72.61
Melting point (C) High 947
Density (g/cm3) 5.5 5.35

Similarly, the properties he predicted for eka-aluminium was close to those


of gallium, eka-boron was close to those of scandium and eka-manganese
was close to those of technetium.

Mendeleev predicted the properties of 21 unknown or undiscovered


elements. His predictions started searches for the missing elements.
When these elements were discovered, their properties were found to be
very close to the properties predicted by Mendeleev. This convinced many
chemists of the accuracy and value of Mendeleev’s periodic table.

Modification to Mendeleev’s Periodic Table

By the early 1900s, X-rays could be used to determine the atomic number of each
element. The periodic table was arranged by atomic mass, and this nearly always gives
the same order as the atomic number. However, there were some exceptions which didn’t
work.

It wasn’t until 1913, six years after Mendeleev’s death that the final piece of the puzzle fell
into place. Henry Moseley used this technology and refined the order of the elements in
the periodic table based on their atomic number.

Therefore, Moseley proposed a minor


change to the periodic law:
‘Elements have properties that recur or
repeat according to their atomic number’.
Questions

Answer the questions in your workbook.

1. Name the scientist who is hailed the creator of the modern periodic table.

2. Match the scientist to their contribution to construction of the periodic table.

Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois, Julius Lothar Meyer, John Newland

Scientist Contribution to the Periodic Table


identified a recurring pattern among the elements and continued
developing the periodic table based on their atomic mass
arranged the elements based on similar chemical and physical
properties
arranged the elements in order of their atomic mass and built an
early form of the periodic table called a telluric helix

3. How did Dmitri Mendeleev begin to construct his version of the periodic table?

4. Describe the innovation of Mendeleev’s periodic table including an example.

5. After, Mendeleev’s death, how was his periodic table modified?

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