Metal reactivity with water vs with acid... I'm not sure about this, but in my lab we tested metals against both. Then it asked us to say if there is a correlation between position on the periodic table and the vigor of the reactivity. For water I said that the reaction is more vigorous when the electrons are further away from the nucleus and would take less energy to dislodge? Is this correct and would it be the same for acid?

Question

abb0t · Answer

Reactivity relates to the ionization energy of the elements. Ionization is defined as the energy required to remove an electron. As you may already know, going across the periodic table moving from left to right, there is less tendency to lose electrons. Going down any group of the table, ionization decreases.

The decrease in ionization energy moving down the periodic table - Groups 1 and 2 elements- become more reactive.
For instance, lithium reacts fairly slowly with water whilst sodium reacts quite vigorously, and K reacts explosively!

anonymous · Answer

So basically what I said is correct? ... then on the acid one I just said that mg reacts more with acid and not with water due to the ion concentration in the acid (we used hcl) causing the metal to lose electrons more easily

abb0t · Answer

Yes.

abb0t · Answer

Sorry, I didn't finish reading what you wrote. I just saw the question n quickly answered it.

anonymous · Answer

Okay. Thanks a bunch!!! My TA won't help me. He just told me, "you learned this earlier in the semester, you should know it" ... That is not helpful at all!!!!!