http://www.webelements.com/

For some reason I felt like seeing if they have discovered new elements...and they have in Feb 2004. Some of these names are just getting rediculous!

 

nerd.

 

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h:

 

Name: rubidium
Symbol: Rb
Atomic number: 37
Atomic weight: 85.4678 (3) g
CAS Registry ID: 7440-17-7
Group number: 1
Group name: Alkali metal
Period number: 5
Block: s-block

Standard state: solid at 298 K
Colour: silvery white
Classification: Metallic

Rubidium can be liquid at ambient temperature, but only on a hot day given that its melting point is about 40°C. It is a soft, silvery-white metallic element of the alkali metals group (Group 1). It is one of the most most electropositive and alkaline elements. It ignites spontaneously in air and reacts violently with water, setting fire to the liberated hydrogen. As so with all the other alkali metals, it forms amalgams with mercury. It alloys with gold, caesium, sodium, and potassium. It colours a flame yellowish-violet.

Here is a brief summary of the isolation of rubidium.
Rubidium would not normally be made in the laboratory as it is available commercially. All syntheses require an electrolytic step as it is so difficult to add an electron to the poorly electronegative rubidium ion Rb+.

Rubidium is not made by the same method as sodium as might have been expected. This is because the rubidium metal, once formed by electrolysis of liquid rubidium chloride (RbCl), is too soluble in the molten salt.

cathode: Rb+(l) + e- --> Rb (l) anode: Cl-(l) --> 1/2Cl2 (g) + e-

Instead, it is made by the reaction of metallic sodium with hot molten rubidium chloride.

Na + RbCl -><- Rb + NaCl

This is an equilibrium reaction and under these conditions the rubidium is highly volatile and removed from the system in a form relatively free from sodium impurities, allowing the reaction to proceed.

 

is it necessary to paste the entire thing :dunno:

 

STFU n00b!!

 

yes sir.