Question

Can non-metal conduct electricity? If yes, how? If no, why?

Answer 1

Hint: In the periodic table, the metals are placed left side and the non-metals are placed on the right side. As we move from metals to nonmetals in the period, the ability to attract electrons increases, this factor can help to determine the ability to conduct electricity.

Complete step by step answer:
- In the periodic table, the elements are arranged according to the increasing number of electrons, i.e., increasing the number of atomic numbers. The metals like sodium, aluminium, potassium, lithium, etc are placed on the left side of the table and nonmetals like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, etc are placed on the right side of the table.
- The elements that can conduct electricity are those in which free electrons are present because we know that the movement of electrons produces an electric current. So, the elements that have electrons are placed on the left side of the periodic table. Like sodium, potassium, etc but the non-metals don't have free electrons, this is due to two reasons, i.e.,
(i)- Since the non-metals are placed on the right side of the periodic table, their size is smaller due to which electrons are held very tight with the nucleus, and there are no free electrons.
(ii)- As the non-metallic character increases in the non-metals the ability to attract electrons towards it or we can say that the non-metals have high electron gain-enthalpy.
So, non-metals mostly cannot conduct electricity.

Note: But the allotropic form of carbon i.e., graphite is a non-metal can conduct electricity because the structure of graphite is in such a way that there is one electron free in each layer which is available for conducting electricity.