We all are familiar with the ads of Idoine salt that show up during the break on TV. Your favourite TV actor might be endorsing it, and you don’t know. We used to think why Idoine is so important for our bodies, that even actors are asking us to purchase it, and that too in the form of salt. Well, there are several ways Idoine as a food item helps us, but the benefits don’t stop there. Today we are going to talk about one of the most important chemical elements that you use in your daily life.
Idoine is something that we are using from the very beginning in lots of ways when humankind started cooking food on fire. One of the essential chemicals that we need to survive is Iodine, and our bodies can make it on their own. As a result, we have to rely on food items to compensate for Iodine’s deficiency. As a rule, set by the government, there is a tiny amount of Iodine that could be present in food items unless it has been added during the food processing to keep it fresh and ready to eat for a long time.
Food that has been processed comes with more Iodine due to the presence of iodized salt. In addition to this, if you are thinking about how companies are getting Iodine and whether their Iodine is safe to eat or not? Well, the answer is, most of the Iodine comes from the natural resource, which is our oceans, where it found in large amounts in seaweed.
The Iodine atomic number is 53, in its natural occurrence, it is present in the form of dark grey or purplish colour. It is a part of the halogen element in the periodic table. All the halogens show quite a resemblance in their chemical nature, and the same happens when they form a compound in their general chemical behaviour.
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The Iodine was first extracted from the seaweed by French Chemist Dr Bernard Courtois when he tried to burn the seaweed and got violet colour ashes along with sulfuric acid as a by-product of the experiment. He didn’t know what to call this chemical, so he named it “chemical X.” After that, Sir Humphry Davy was going to Italy from Paris, and on his way, he found that “chemical X” is analogous to chlorine and came with the name Iodine, which means violet colour in Greek.
The atomic mass of Iodine is 126.904, and it is the least reactive halogen. Besides this property, it comes second in the list of electropositive halogens. Iodine is also used in photography and dyes, creating several medicines in the field of medical science.
What Is Iodine?
When talking about the Iodine electron configuration, we first need to know what does it mean by electronic configuration. In terms of chemistry, the electron configuration is the arrangement of electrons in different orbits of an atom or given molecule. Now, if we look at the Iodine electron configuration, we will have this, which is written down below.
1s22s22p63s23p63d104s24p64d105s25p5 , 2-8-18-18-7
Also, Iodine symbol is (I), yes, that’s it, this is how you are going to represent Iodine when you are using it to show the chemical reactions between the two compounds and elements.
The (i) element is quite easy to remember, and its oxidation states are -1, +1, +3, +5, and +7. Likewise, the only stable Iodine which occurs naturally on earth is iodine-127. On the other hand, we have an exceptionally useful isotope of Iodine, which is present in the radioactive form, and this isotope is iodine-131.
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The atomic weight of Iodine is 126.9044. The presence of Iodine in seawater is not magnificent, because you can get only 50 mg of Iodine per metric ton of seawater. But seaweeds are the best resource for extracting Iodine, and most of the Iodine that is present in our food comes from there.
Uses of Iodine
The mass of Iodine makes it a unique element for producing images with the help of a piece of metal. As a result, Iodine made it possible for photography to go commercial; this technique was invented by Louis Daguerre in 1839.
In the modern world, we see a lot of commercial Iodine uses, salts such as Iodide are being used as disinfectants and in pharmaceutical companies to produce medicines.
Furthermore, it is used to print inks and dyes and to create a catalyst to speed up the chemical reaction.
Lastly, one of the most common uses of Iodine is in table salt. It is present in the low amount but helps avoid the iodine deficiency that can lead to malfunctioning of the thyroid gland, resulting in swelling of Goitre in the human body.
FAQs on Iodine
1. Write down iodine chemical formula
Iodine element is present in the group of halogens in the periodic table. When we free the Iodine from its compound, it forms diatomic molecules. Meaning the molecules of Iodine are composed of only two atoms that can be of the same element, or they could be of the different aspects. Depending on the extraction process and which compound you use.
The chemical formula of Iodine is I2.
2. Is Iodine a metal?
Lots of students have this misconception about Iodine being a metal. The first thing you should ask yourself is if Iodine were a metal, how could it be used in your salt? There is no way we can eat and digest metal. So just from simple reasoning, you can get to your answer, which is no, no iodine is not a metal, it is a non-metal with a greyish and dark purple colour. Iodine can be easily sublimed and will produce violet colour vapours upon heat.
Any salt that you have at your home has Iodine added to it, so remember never think of Iodine as a metal.
