The Reactivity of Metals

The Reactivity of Metals

Planning:

Aim: to put these 5 metals in the order of reactivity.

* Iron

* Copper

* Magnesium

* Lead

* Zinc

Scientific Information: A displacement reaction is where a more

reactive element reacts with a compound and pushes out a less reactive

element. E.g. magnesium will react with iron sulphate to push the iron

out and form magnesium sulphate. I have carried out preliminary

experiments and they have shown me that the reactivity of metals and

elements can be deciphered from the table of elements, this will tell

you how the reactive a metal or element is by simply looking what

group it is in and in which period. The reactivity series starts with

the most reactive metal potassium and ends in the least reactive

platinum, the reactivity of elements depends on how many electrons it

has on the outer shell and also how close the outer shell of the

element is to the nucleus.

In the experiment that we will be carrying out we can decide how

reactive a metal is by representing the energy exchange on a energy

exchange graph the equation to work out energy exchange is as follows:

Q=MC∆T this information from here can be shown on a energy exchange

graph:

[IMAGE]

When the graph has been drawn you can see that the element that uses

more energy is more reactive.

Iron is extracted using a blast furnace. The iron ore, coke and

limestone are added to the blast furnace that has been heated to

1500oC, the coke burns and produces carbon dioxide the carbon dioxide

then reacts with the unburnt coke to form carbon monoxide then reduces

the iron ore to iron. In the other cases of metals the most common way

of extracting the metal from its ore is by chemical reaction and

through electrolysis. The more reactive the metals are; such as

magnesium the harder they are to extract from the ore state that they