Question

Fill in the blanks
Non - metal which is stored in water _______.

Answer 1

Hint:. That non – metal is situated in the VA group of p-block in the periodic table and their atomic number is 15. That non -metal is present in mainly two forms in nature and shows white and red appearance.

Complete step by step answer:
Phosphorus is highly chemically reactive in nature and easily gets oxidized in the atmosphere and catches fire. And melting point of phosphorus is very low which is around ${\text{4}}{{\text{4}}^{\text{0}}}{\text{C}}$ that’s why it easily catches fire in the atmospheric condition.
-Due to above given points phosphorus is stored in water.
Hence, Non - metal which is stored in water is Phosphorous.

Additional information: Configuration of electrons in the phosphorus atom is shown as $1{s^2},2{s^2}2{p^6},3{s^2}3{p^3}$ and from this given configuration it is clear that in phosphorous five valence electrons are present.
-Generally phosphorus shows $ - 3$ and $ + 3$ oxidation state, because by accepting $3$ electrons and by removing $3$ electrons it achieves stable electronic configuration i.e. $2$ and $8$ respectively.
-Due to its reactive behavior in nature phosphorus is present in ${{\text{P}}_{\text{4}}}$ form.
-White phosphorus and red phosphorus are the two main types of phosphorus in the earth.

Note: Here some of you may think that by storing sodium metal in water it also reacts vigorously, but why phosphorus not show that type of behavior. So the reason is that sodium metal is comparatively more reactive than phosphorus non - metal, that’s why phosphorus is stored in water.