what happens to the nature of oxides, on moving from left to right in the modern periodic table?
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As we move horizontally from left to right what happen to the metallic character of the element?
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If we move from left to right in the periodic table, then the metallic character of the element will decrease.
Firstly, let us start from the left, say sodium. It has only one electron in it’s outermost shell. We can say that it is really desperate to give off its one electron to somebody to attain inert gas configuration, which is what all atoms want(as it is their most stable state). Metallic character of an element depends on its tendency to give away its outermost electrons to obtain stable state. Since sodium readily does so, we can label it as a metal.
Now let us move to the far right of the table, say chlorine. Now chlorine has 7 outermost electrons. With the subsequent increase in the number of electrons as we move from left to right, there is also a subsequent increase in the number of protons. This results the outermost electrons to be bound more tightly and hence it is not energetically favourable for an atom to overcome such a high force of attraction. Hence, it is not possible for chlorine to lose 7 electrons to attain inert gas configuration. So, it is non-metallic in nature.
So, as we go from left to right in the periodic table, the tendency to lose electrons to attain inert gas configuration reduces and so, metallic character also reduces.
The oxides become more acidic in nature as we go from left to right in the modern periodic table. Since in the left side, the elements are metals, oxides are basic and as we go from left to right, non-metallic character increases and acidic nature of oxides increase.