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The chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. For example, any atom that contains 11 protons is sodium, and any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. Atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element.
A chemical element, often simply called an element, is a type of atom which has a specific number of protons in its atomic nucleus (i.e., a specific atomic number, or Z). [ 1 ] The definitive visualisation of all 118 elements is the periodic table of the elements , whose history along the principles of the periodic law was one of the founding ...
The term "(chemical) element" is used in two different but closely related meanings: [2] it can mean a chemical substance consisting of a single kind of atoms (a free element), or it can mean that kind of atoms as a component of various chemical substances. For example, molecules of water (H 2 O) contain atoms of hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O), so ...
In chemistry, a free element is a chemical element that is not combined with or chemically bonded to other elements. Examples of elements which can occur as free elements include the molecular oxygen (O 2) and carbon as diamond or graphite. [1] Other examples of free elements include the noble metals gold and platinum.
A chemical formula is a way of expressing information about the proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound, using chemical symbols for the chemical elements, and subscripts to indicate the number of atoms involved. For example, water is composed of two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom: the chemical formula is H 2 O.
The chemical distinctions between metals and nonmetals is connected to the attractive force between the positive nuclear charge of an individual atom and its negatively charged outer electrons. From left to right across each period of the periodic table, the nuclear charge (number of protons in the atomic nucleus ) increases. [ 69 ]
A synthetic element is one of 24 known chemical elements that do not occur naturally on Earth: they have been created by human manipulation of fundamental particles in a nuclear reactor, a particle accelerator, or the explosion of an atomic bomb; thus, they are called "synthetic", "artificial", or "man-made".
A chemical formula used for a series of compounds that differ from each other by a constant unit is called a general formula. It generates a homologous series of chemical formulae. For example, alcohols may be represented by the formula C n H 2n + 1 OH (n ≥ 1), giving the homologs methanol, ethanol, propanol for 1 ≤ n ≤ 3.