missmendeleev
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A quick question for everyone
I don't know if this is strange/a surprise to you, but I have a favourite element. Mendelevium. Here are facts I know about this element:
It was named for Dmitri Mendeleev.
The atomic number is 101.
It is a multivalent element, oxidation states +2 and +3.
It was discovered in 1955.
The atomic weight is 258.1
The electronegativity is 1.3.
Do you have a favourite element?
My life is chemistry.
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Volanschemia
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I can't choose one so...
Mercury, Bromine, Osmium, Phosphorus.
Not necessarily in that order.
"The chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost insane impulse to seek their pleasures amid smoke and
vapor, soot and flame, poisons and poverty; yet among all these evils I seem to live so sweetly that may I die if I were to change places with the
Persian king" - Johann Joachim Becher, 1635 to 1682.
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j_sum1
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I kinda like the Cr Mo W group. But that's mostly because I have had some fun experimenting with them.
There is something inherently cool about the liquid elements. Bromine is the quintessential cartoon-evil-scientist element. Mercury just behaves,
well, counterintuitive -- if you are comparing with everyday objects.
We have had similar discussions before and there is never any concensus.
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myristicinaldehyde
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Copper, iodine and iridium. Oh and carbon too! 
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
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crystal grower
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#1 Bismuth - crystals 
#2 Bromine - no need for explanation I think...
#3 Iridium - 9th oxidation state :O
[Edited on 4-7-2016 by crystal grower]
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Fleaker
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Osmium.
It's a bear to work with but so easily purified.
Neither flask nor beaker.
"Kid, you don't even know just what you don't know. "
--The Dark Lord Sauron
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Trevor9424
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The halogens, the most favorite being bromine and iodine. The reason being that they tend to form interesting compounds and their reactivity is
useful.
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fluorescence
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I'd like to give you some extra information on the chemistry of Mendelevium but there isnt really much about it and it doesnt seem to posess something
incredibly new that other elements don't have.
Favourite element ? Dunno I like a lot of Elements actually. I do a lot of toxic element research so I prefer Beryllium, Thallium, Arsenic, ... lately
Thallium has surprised me with a huge variety of temperature dependend colors and I'd like to further investigate this soon, so at the moment it might
be Tl. I like the aqueous chemistry of Transactinides, so from Rf-Og. People usually say they are useless but these elements show some incredible
chemistry and could theoretically be handled in aqueous enviroments. If you compare this to Nb and Ta, both of them show usually oxides and no cations
at all (!) it's just V and Db that do some interesting chemistry. Too bad we will probably never be able to fully explore it.
And at some point the relative effects so Relativity meets our quantummechanical Obital solutions and both of these theories are nearly impossible to
combine so our models end there. We don't know if the 7s, 7p and 6d Orbitals actually have the position and energy with think maybe we even get a
mixed population which makes both Coppernicium and Flerovium possible noble gases. Both of them are probably metallic gases (!).
Some trends are just broken. Rg does not pull electrons as strong as Au does so a NaRg will not be a Na(+)Au(-) but rather an alloy with a nearly even
distribution of electrons between the both of them.
This is what fascinates me most about these elements. People hardly ever talk about their chemistry but they have a lot of stuff we can only deam
about for the elements we usually work with.
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Metacelsus
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Pt has recently been predicted to have a stable +10 oxidation state (see: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2016/06/oxidation-state-10...). Preparing it would be quite a challenge, however.
I'm going to be boring and say carbon is my favorite element, just due to its huge versatility. (Diamonds are also cool.)
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careysub
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I'm fickle. Once it was halogens, then the alkali metals, and then some of the actinides. There is a lot be said for hydrogen. And phosphorus is
pretty neat.
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Texium
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With organic chemistry being my main interest, the element I'd immediately jump to would of course be carbon.
However, when I think about it more, organic chemistry would be pretty boring if we were limited only to hydrocarbons, and though carbon does provide
the backbone of all organic compounds, it's mainly oxygen and nitrogen that make them more "interesting," (not to say that there aren't interesting
hydrocarbons). So I'm thinking that I'm actually leaning towards oxygen right now, mainly for that reason.
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xfusion44
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I like all of them but if I had to choose one, it would probably be chlorine.
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unionised
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Gold.
Those who disagree are welcome to send me any spare gold they have.
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chemplayer...
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Counting down... our top three...
3. Silver - the best conductor, the beautiful colour, the way it seems to be able to undergo and facilitate unique reactions.
2. Iodine - mysterious sublimate, opens up so many interesting reactions and has some unique and interesting chemistry of its own.
1. Nitrogen - so boring as a molecule, but with amazing history (Haber process, history of nitrates etc.), and then so much incredible chemistry
including the heart in one way or another of a lot of organic synthesis, functional group transformations, alkaloids, etc.
Coincidentally, all three have atomic numbers which are prime.
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careysub
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Piggy-backing on this thread about favorite element...
It got me thinking, how many elements have colorful salts/compounds (or alternatively, how many *don't*)?
These make nice additions to element displays.
By "colorful" (or "colourful" to those of you across the pond) I mean not white, black or beige. A good solid brown for the pure salt would pass
though.
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fluorescence
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@careysub: That is probably a never ending question. You could start with all of the d-Elements probably. Most of them have a lot of colored compounds
actually. And even the main group elements show a lot of colored compounds, too.
Starting with Iron for example there are so called Inorganic Dyes, some of the oldest are made from Iron which depending on oxide concentration can
have various shades of yellow, orange, brown, red, ... blue or yellow as Sulfates or purple as Ferrates.
You should ask which elements don't show interesting colors ?
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