As early chemists discovered more elements, they realized that various elements could be grouped by their similar chemical behaviors. One such grouping includes lithium (Li), sodium (Na), and potassium (K). All of these elements are shiny, conduct heat and electricity well, and have similar chemical properties. A second grouping includes calcium (Ca), strontium (Sr), and barium (Ba), which also are shiny, good conductors of heat and electricity, and have chemical properties in common. However,...

The periodic table arranges atoms based on increasing atomic number so that elements with the same chemical properties recur periodically. When their electron configurations are added to the table, a periodic recurrence of similar electron configurations in the outer shells of these elements is observed. Because they are in the outer shells of an atom, valence electrons play the most important role in chemical reactions. The outer electrons have the highest energy of the electrons in an atom...

Organometallic compounds are compounds that contain a carbon–metal bond. Carbon belongs to an organyl group like alkyl, aryl, allyl, or benzyl groups. The metal can be from Group I or Group II of the periodic table, a transition metal, or a semimetal.

In most main group element compounds, the valence electrons of the isolated atoms combine to form chemical bonds that satisfy the octet rule. For instance, the four valence electrons of carbon overlap with electrons from four hydrogen atoms to form CH4. The one valence electron leaves sodium and adds to the seven valence electrons of chlorine to form the ionic formula unit NaCl (Figure 1a). Transition metals do not normally bond in this fashion. They primarily form coordinate covalent bonds, a...

A chemical formula presents information about the proportions of atoms constituting a particular chemical compound or molecule, mainly using symbols of elements and numbers. At times other symbols, such as dashes, parentheses, brackets, commas, plus, and minus signs, are also used. A chemical formula can be one of three types – molecular, empirical, and structural.

A chemical symbol is an abbreviation that is used to indicate an element or an atom of an element. For example, the symbol for mercury is Hg. We use the same symbol to indicate one atom of mercury (microscopic domain) or to label a container of many atoms of the element mercury (macroscopic domain).
Some symbols are derived from the common name of the element; others are abbreviations of the name in another language. Most symbols have one or two letters, but three-letter symbols have been used...