Question

Which metal is found in liquid state at room temperature?
A. Iron
B. Zinc
C. Mercury
D. Aluminium

Answer 1

Hint: Generally almost all metals present in the periodic table are solid at room temperature. Very few metals have the property to exist as liquid at room temperature. Different metals melts at different temperatures and the atoms present in a metal are closely packed.

Complete step by step answer:
- We have to find the metal which is in liquid state at room temperature among the given options.
- Generally metals are in solid state at room temperature.
- But mercury is the only metal which is in liquid state at room temperature.
- To know the reason why mercury is liquid at room temperature we should know the electronic configuration of mercury.
- The atomic number of mercury is 80.
- The electronic configuration of mercury is as follows.
\[[Xe]4{{f}^{14}}5{{d}^{10}}6{{s}^{2}}\]
- Generally metals lose electrons very easily and form bonds with other elements.
- But mercury does not share its valence electrons with others.
- The electrons in the mercury metal are tightly bounded by the nucleus and they exhibit relativistic effects.
- Because of this the electrons in mercury behave like they are bigger than the slow moving electron.
- Due to this weak bonding nature mercury shows low melting point and low boiling point.
- Means Mercury requires very less amount of energy to break the bond between mercury atoms.
- Therefore the metal which exists as liquid at room temperature is mercury.

- So, the correct option is C.

Note: Mercury cannot form diatomic molecules in the gaseous phase also. Mercury won’t react with dilute acids and dilute bases. But mercury reacts with strong oxidizing acids like concentrated sulphuric acid and concentrated nitric acid and forms respective mercury (II) derivatives.