Transition metal
Overview
- The IUPAC definition states that a transition metal is "an element whose atom has an incomplete d sub-shell, or which can give rise to cations with an incomplete d sub-shell." Group 12 elementGroup 12 elementA group 12 element is one of the elements in group 12 in the periodic table. This includes zinc , cadmium and mercury . The further inclusion of copernicium in group 12 is supported by recent experiments on individual Cn atoms...
s are not transition metals in this definition. - Some authors describe a "transition metal" as any element in the d-blockD-blockThe d-block is the portion of the periodic table that contains the element groups 3-12. These groups correspond to the filling of the atomic d-orbital subshell, with electron configurations ranging from s2d1 to s2d10...
of the periodic tablePeriodic tableThe periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...
, which includes groups 3 to 12 on the periodic tablePeriodic tableThe periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...
.
