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Why is lithium important more reactive than potassium

Recently, I was telling my friends about the violent reaction that takes place when you throw potassium risperdal pregnancy water. Soon after, a friend of mine claimed that lithium would react more violently than potassium.

Reactivity series

I disagreed with him, because potassium is more electropositive than lithium and thus more reactive. My friend claimed lithium to be more reactive than potassium due to its position in the reactivity series of metals:.

Then we found out that potassium reacts indeed more violently in water. But what about his argument? Why isn't he right? The reason behind the more why is lithium important more reactive than potassium reactivity of potassium rather than lithium lies in kinetics and not in thermodynamics.

Chemistry of Lithium (Z=3)

No doubt, maximum energy is evolved with lithium but the vaporization and ionization will also consume maximum energy the melting point and ionization energy of lithium are the highest and so the reaction proceeds gently. On the other hand, potassium has a lower melting point and ionization enthalpy.

The heat of reaction is sufficient to melt it. The molten metal spreads over the water and exposes a larger surface article source water. Also, the why is lithium important more reactive than potassium radius of lithium is the greatest out of all alkali metals. This reduces the ionic mobility which in turn reduces the speed of the molten metal.

Chemistry of Lithium (Z=3) - Chemistry LibreTexts

More than 30 years ago in high school chemistry, our teacher put a flake of Sodium in a beaker filled why is lithium important more reactive than potassium with water and the Sodium flitted around the beaker like a little motorboat letting out small wisps of smoke.

Once that was done he put in a small flake of Potassium.

It reacted much more violently. The potassium shot around the beaker with smoke and sparks.

Reactivity series - Wikipedia

The sparks came as a result of the reaction being so energetic why is lithium important more reactive than potassium the heat of the reaction ignited the free hydrogen. The way he explained it was that the single electron in the outer shell of Why is lithium important more reactive than potassium was further from the nucleus than Sodium and of course even further from the nucleus than Lithium and was thus freed from the nucleus' click here bond much easier.

This might not be click here technical answer but it was easy for me to understand and remember all these years later.

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Group 1A or IA of the periodic table are the alkali metals: These are except for hydrogen soft, shiny, low-melting, highly reactive metals, which tarnish when exposed to air. The name comes from the fact that when these metals or their oxides are dissolved in water, a basic alkaline solution results.

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In chemistry, a reactivity series or activity series is an empirical, calculated, and structurally analytical progression [1] of a series of metals , arranged by their "reactivity" from highest to lowest. There is no unique and fully consistent way to define the reactivity series, but it is common to use the three [ not in citation given ] types of reaction listed below, many of which can be performed in a high-school laboratory at least as demonstrations. The most reactive metals, such as sodium , will react with cold water to produce hydrogen and the metal hydroxide:.

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Lithium is a rare element found primarily in molten rock and saltwater in very small amounts. It is understood to be non-vital in human biological processes, although it is used in many drug treatments due to its positive effects on the human brain.