

Silver iodide (AgI) is used in the photography process as well as in cloud seeding attempts to generate rain. Catalysts, medicines, and colours are all made from iodine compounds. Iodine has been used as a disinfectant in “tincture of iodine” for many years. This substance is relatively flammable, and when heated, it transforms into a violet-colored gas.

Iodine is a brightly coloured solid with a nearly metallic sheen. This element’s name comes from the Greek term bromos, which means “stench.” Flame retardants, fire-extinguishing agents, sedatives, antiknock agents for gasoline, and insecticides are all made with bromine. Each year, a large amount of chlorine is needed to create solvents such carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 ), chloroform (CHCl 3 ), dichloroethylene (C 2 H 2 Cl 2 ), and trichloroethylene (C 2 H 2 Cl 2 ) (C 2 HCl 3 ).īromine (Br 2 ) is a suffocating reddish-orange liquid with an awful odour. It’s powerful enough to oxidise the dyes that give wood pulp its yellow or brown colour, bleaching out the hue, and powerful enough to kill germs, acting as a germicide. Chlorine is a highly strong oxidising chemical that is utilised as a bleaching agent and disinfectant in industry. It reacts with these alloys as well, but it generates a fluoride coating on the surface that protects the metal from further reaction.Ĭhlorine (Cl 2 ) is an extremely poisonous gas that has a pale yellow-green appearance. Equipment made of copper and nickel alloys is used to manage fluorine.

F 2 affects glass and quartz, for example, as well as most metals, causing them to catch fire. It’s so reactive that it forms compounds with elements like Kr, Xe, and Rn, which were once thought to be inert.Fluorine is so reactive that finding a container in which it may be stored is difficult. The Elemental Form of the Halogens:įluorine (F 2 ) is a very toxic, colourless gas that is the most reactive element known, igniting asbestos, water, and silicon when it comes into contact with it. Chloride ions can be found in rock salt (NaCl), the oceans (which include about 2% Cl- ion by weight), and salty lakes (such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which has 9 percent Cl- ion by weight). Minerals like fluorite (CaF 2 ) and cryolite contain fluoride ions (Na 3 AlF 6 ). They are almost always encountered as halide ion salts (F-, Cl-, Br-, and I-). In their elemental state, none of the halogens can be found in nature. The halogens are named by the fact that they are salt-forming elements. (The half-lives of the most stable astatine isotopes are less than a minute.) As a result, the largest samples of astatine molecules investigated to date were fewer than 50 ng.) The chemistry of Group VIIA elements is thus concentrated on four elements: fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. When discussing the chemistry of these elements, hydrogen is distinguished from the others, while astatine is overlooked due to its radioactivity. They all form diatomic molecules (H 2, F 2, Cl 2, Br 2, I 2, and At 2 ) and negatively charged ions (H-, F-, Cl-, Br-, I-, and At-). As one might imagine, these elements share several characteristics. Group VIIA, the next-to-last column of the periodic table, contains six elements.
