Properties of Boron Family

The Group 13 contains six elements. They belong to the boron family named as follows: Boron (B), aluminum (Al), gallium (Ga), Indium (In), thallium (Tl), and element 113 (Nihonium) gets the name of ununtrium Uut. The mutual property of the group is that each one of the elements has three electrons in the external shell of their nuclear structure.

Boron is the lightest of the elements mentioned in this group. It is non-metal. Astonishingly, the others in the group are bright white metals. These elements have similarly been referred to as icosagens and triels.

The Occurrence of the Boron Family

We find boron to a limited extent. It is mostly a yield of the barrage of subatomic molecules created from typical radioactivity. Aluminum is freely available on our planet. It is also the third most abundant element in the Earth’s outside (8.3%).

We can discover Gallium in the earth with a wealth of 13 parts per molecule. Indium is the 61st richest element in the world’s shell. Thallium is spread in small amounts all over the planet. Ununtrium is not available naturally and therefore, has been named a synthetic or (artificial) element.

General Properties of the Boron Family

Physical Properties of Group 13 Elements

• Indium has a smaller nuclear radius than Thallium. This is due to the lanthanide compression.

• As we move down to the element in the group, the +1 oxidation state turns out to be more stable than +3 states. This is mainly due to the inert pair effect.

• Boron has a high melting point. This is due to the icosahedral assembly. In the boron family, gallium has the lowest melting point of all.

• All the elements of this family glow in oxygen at high temperatures forming M2O3.

• Aluminum is amphoteric. It means that the metal crumbles in weakened mineral acids and in sodium hydroxide (aqueous).

• As we move down the group, the acidic nature of hydroxides decreases.

• Boric acid is an exceedingly delicate monobasic acid.

Chemical Properties of Group 13 Elements

• Separation of the group 13 elements needs a lot of energy. This is due to the compounds made by the Group 13 elements with oxygen being inert thermodynamically.

• Boron behaves as a non-metal chemically. Still, the rest of the elements show metallic characteristics. Why does this occur? A big portion of the irregularities seen in the characteristics of the group 13 elements is attributed to the growth in Zeff(Effective Nuclear Charge). This arises from the weakened protection from the atomic charge by the occupied (n − 1) d10 and (n − 2) f14 subshells.

• Rather than modeling a metallic grid with delocalized valence electrons, boron mounts special aggregates that contain multicenter bonds. This contains metal borides, in which boron attaches to other boron atoms. This arrangement makes three-dimensional systems with steady geometric structures.

• Compounds of the group 13 elements are all neutral and electrons lacking and act like Lewis acids. The denser elements shape halogen-connected dimers that contain electron-match bonds, as different to the delocalized electron-lacking bonds typical for diborane.

• Their oxides often break down in weakened acids, in spite of the fact that the oxides of aluminum and gallium are amphoteric. The group 13 elements can never react with hydrogen because the valence of hydrogen is one and that of the boron family is three.

Properties of Aluminum

Density of Aluminum

Aluminum has a density around 1/3 that of copper or steel making it one of the lightest commercially available metals. The resulting high strength to weight ratio marks it as a significant structural material allowing increased loads or fuel savings for transport industries.

Thermal Conductivity of Aluminum

The thermal conductivity of aluminum is about three times larger than that of steel. This makes aluminum an essential material for both cooling and heating applications such as heat exchangers. Combined with it being non-toxic this characteristic means aluminum is used widely in cooking utensils and kitchenware.

Electrical Conductivity of Aluminum

Along with copper, aluminum has a high electrical conductivity sufficient for use as an electrical conductor. Although the conductivity of the normally used conducting alloy (1350) is only somewhere around 62% of annealed copper, it is only 1/3 the weight and can hence conduct double electricity in comparison with copper of the same weight.

Reflectivity of Aluminum

From infra-red to UV, aluminum is a tremendous reflector of radiant energy. Visible light reflectivity is around 80% which means it is broadly used in light fixtures. The same characteristic of reflectivity makes aluminum perfect as an insulating material to protect against the sun’s rays while insulating against heat loss in winter.

Properties of Gallium

Physical Properties of Gallium

Elemental gallium is not commonly found in nature, but it is easily gained by smelting. Very pure gallium metal has a silvery color and its solid metal cracks similarly like glass. Gallium in liquid states expands by 3.10% when it solidifies; hence, it should not be kept in glass or metal containers because the container may break when the gallium changes state. Gallium shares the higher-density liquid state with a list of other compounds that includes water, germanium, silicon, antimony, bismuth, and plutonium.

Gallium attacks maximum other metals by spreading into the metal lattice. For instance, it diffuses into the particle boundaries of aluminum-zinc alloys and steel, making them very fragile. Blends with many compounds, and is used in small amounts in the plutonium-gallium alloy in the plutonium centers of nuclear bombs to calm the plutonium crystal structure.

Melting Point

The MP of gallium is a little above room temperature, at 29.7646 °C (302.9146 K, 85.5763 °F). It is about the same as the average summer day temperatures in Earth's mid-latitudes. This MP is one of the proper temperature reference points in the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) established by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). Gallium triple point is, 302.9166 K (29.7666 °C, 85.5799 °F), in favor of the melting point, which is often used by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Chemical Properties

Gallium is found basically in the +3 oxidation state. The +1 oxidation state can be found in some materials, although it is less common than it is for gallium's denser congener’s indium and thallium. For instance, the very stable GaCl2 has both gallium (I) and gallium (III) and can be expressed as GaIGaIIICl4; in contrast, the monochloride is non-stable above 0 °C, disproportionation into fundamental gallium and gallium (III) chloride. A substance having Ga–Ga bonds are true gallium(II) substance, such as GaS (which can be expressed as Ga24+(S2−)2) and the dioxin complex Ga2Cl4(C4H8O2)2

Properties of Indium

Physical Properties of Indium

Indium is a silvery-white, extremely ductile post-transition metal with a bright shine. It is so soft (hardness is 1.2) that like sodium (Na), it can be sliced with a knife. It also leaves a noticeable line on paper. It is a member of group 13 on the periodic table and its properties or characteristics are typically intermediate in between its vertical neighbor's gallium and thallium. Like a container, a high-pitched cry is heard when indium is twisted – a cracking sound due to crystal twinning.

Melting Point and Boiling Point

Indium has a small melting point of 156.60 °C (313.88 °F); above than its lighter homologue, gallium, but slightly lower than its heavier homologue, thallium, and lower than tin. The boiling point is 3762 °F (2072 °C), above than that of thallium, but lower than gallium, equally to the general tendency of melting points, but likewise to the trends down the other post-transition metal sets due to the weakness of the metallic bonding with few electrons.

Density

The density is about 7.31 g/cm3, also more than gallium but not higher than thallium. Below the critical temperature, 3.41 K, indium converts to a superconductor. Indium tends to crystallize on the body-centered tetragonal crystal system in the space group parameters: a = 325 pm, c = 495 pm): this is a somewhat distorted face-centered cubic configuration, where each indium atom has four neighbors at 326 pm distance and eight neighbors a little further (336 pm).

Indium has higher solubility in liquid mercury than any other metal. Indium shows a ductile viscoelastic response, found to be size-free in tension and compression. Still, it does have a size effect in bending and dent, related to a length-scale of order 60–110 µm, meaningfully large when compared with other metals.

Chemical Properties

Indium has about 49 electrons, with an electronic arrangement of Kr4d105s25p1. In material, indium usually donates the three outermost electrons to develop indium(III), In3+. In certain cases, the pair of 5s-electrons are not given, causing in indium(I), In+. The balance of the monovalent state is recognized to the inert pair effect, in which relativistic effects stabilize the 5s-orbital, as observed in heavier elements. Thallium exhibits an even stronger effect, producing oxidation to thallium(I) to be additional probable than to thallium(III), while gallium (indium's lighter homologue) usually exhibits only the +3 oxidation state. So, thallium(III) is a reasonably strong oxidizing agent, and indium(III) is not, and indium(I) compounds are great reducing agents. While the energy needed to have the s-electrons in chemical bonding is minimum for indium between the group 13 metals, bond energies decline down the group so that by indium, the energy liberated in producing two extra bonds and getting the +3 state is not always enough to outweigh the energy required to have the 5s-electrons. Indium(I) oxide and hydroxide are more simple and indium(III) oxide and hydroxide are extra acidic.

Properties of Nihonium

Properties of Element 113 - Nihonium

Nihonium is the first compound of the 7p chain of elements and the heaviest in group 13 elements on the periodic table, after boron, aluminum, gallium, indium, and thallium. Group 13 elements excluding boron are metals, and nihonium is predictable to follow suit. Nihonium is expected to show many changes from its lighter homologues. The main reason for this is due to the spin-orbit (SO) interface, which is particularly strong for the superheavy elements, due to their electrons moving much faster than in fewer weight atoms, at speed close to the speed of light. In association to nihonium atoms, it reduces the 7s and the 7p electron energy shells (stabilizing those electrons), however, two of the 7p electron energy levels are stabilized more than the four others. The stabilization of the 7s electrons is known as the inert pair effect, and the dividing of the 7p subshell into the less and more stabilized parts is known as subshell division. Computational chemists see the division as a change of the second, azimuthal quantum number l, from 1 to 1/2 and 3/2 for the less and more stabilized parts of the 7p subshell, individually. For abstract purposes, the valence electron arrangement may be characterized to reflect the 7p subshell divided as 7s2 7p1/2 The first ionization energy of nihonium is predictable to be 7.306 eV, the maximum among the metals of group 13. Parallel subshell splitting should be for the 6d electron levels, with four being 6d3/2 and six being 6d5/2. Both these stages are elevated to be close in energy to the 7s ones, highly sufficient to maybe be chemically active. This would let for the possibility of interesting nihonium compounds without lighter group 13 similarities.

Periodic trends would be expected nihonium to have an atomic radius bigger than that of thallium because of being one period further down the periodic table, but measuring propose nihonium has an atomic radius of about 170 pm, very similar to that of thallium, because of the relativistic stabilization and shrinkage of its 7s and 7p1/2 orbitals. Thus nihonium is predictable to be much denser than thallium, with an expected density of about 16 to 18 g/cm3 as in comparison to thallium's 11.85 g/cm3, meanwhile, nihonium atoms are quite heavier than thallium atoms but have the same size. Majority nihonium is likely to have a hexagonal close-packed crystalline assembly, like thallium. The boiling points and the boiling point of nihonium have been predicted to be 1100 °C and 430 °C respectively, above the values for gallium, indium, and thallium, following periodic table trends.

Tips for Learning about the Boron Family - Group 13 Elements

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Importance of Learning about the Boron Family - Group 13 Elements

Studying the concept of the Boron Family is important for the students. In this topic, you will learn the various elements of the boron family along with their unique properties. The Boron Family - Group 13 Elements is one of the crucial topics of the Chemistry syllabus. 

Mentioned below are some reasons why you should learn this concept of Chemistry:  

• Learning about the Boron Family will help you secure an excellent score in the Chemistry exam.  

• The topic of Group 13 Elements gives you a better understanding of the elements in the periodic table and how each element is different from the other. 

• If you know the properties of the Boron Family - Group 13 Elements, you will be able to identify any element from the boron family with ease.