Question

The metallic character of transition elements increases from scandium chromium by

Answer 1

Answer:

Transition elements show metallic character as they have low ionization energies and have several vacant orbitals in their outermost shell. This property favors the formation of metallic bonds in the transition metals and so they exhibit typical metallic properties.These metals are hard which indicates the presence of covalent bonds. This happens because transition metals have unpaired d-electrons. The d-orbital which contains the unpaired electrons may overlap and form covalent bonds. Higher the number of unpaired electrons present in the transition metals, more is the number of covalent bonds formed by them. This further increases the hardness of the metal and its strength.

The metals chromium (Cr), tungsten (W) and molybdenum (Mo) have maximum number of unpaired d-electrons. Therefore these transition metals are very hard. On the other hand we have zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd) and mercury (Hg) which are not very hard as they do not possess unpaired d-electrons. The transition elements are very hard and possess metallic character; this indicates that both metallic and covalent bonding exists together in these elements.