Cl Atom



Chlorine is an element with unique properties

  1. Cl Atomic Radius
  2. Cl Atom Structure
  3. Cl Atomic Model
  4. The Atom Of Chlorine
  5. Chlorine Model Of The Atom
  • Elemental chlorine gas (Cl2) is a yellow-green gas at room temperature and has a pungent odor similar to bleach even at very low concentrations.
  • Chlorine has an atomic number of 17 and an atomic mass of 35.45, meaning that an atom of chlorine consists of 17 protons, 17 electrons, and 18 neutrons.
  • As a member of the halogen family on the Periodic Table, chlorine is very reactive with metals and forms salts. This is because halogens have seven outer ring electrons (“valence electrons”) but need eight to form a stable configuration. Metals will ionically bond with chlorine and yield an electron to halogens, forming a stable “octet.”
  • The chloride ion (Cl) forms a covalent bond with itself to form Cl2 gas in its pure form.
  • Chlorine’s boiling point is -35⁰C (-31⁰F), and its melting point is -101⁰C (-149.8⁰F). The density of chlorine is 13.0 lb/gal, making it denser than air. The high density of chlorine gas causes it to sink if released into the ambient environment.

Chlorine is more stable in ion state than in the neutral atom. But it is only more stable with respect to its own electrons. For the rest of the world it has one negative charge in excess. Chlorine connects to a Socket REPL and adds autocomplete, goto var definition, evaluation, refresh, and documentation of functions on Atom. It can also add additional things, so check it out on extending Chlorine.

Prevalent on our planet and beyond

  • Chlorine is the 19th most common element in the earth’s crust, at a prevalence of 1.45 x 102 milligrams per kilogram.
  • In the ocean, chlorine is the third most common element, at a prevalence of 1.94 x 104 milligrams per kilogram of water.
  • Overall, chlorine is the 23rd most prevalent element in the universe.
  • In nature, chlorine is found combined with other elements, such as in salt compounds, carnallite, and sylvite. Some volcanoes emit elemental chlorine gas (Cl2).
  • Elemental chlorine gas (Cl2) is manufactured using the chlor-alkali process, which uses electrolysis to transform highly concentrated salt water (brine) into chlorine, sodium hydroxide, and hydrogen.
  • Commercial sources of chlorine utilize seawater, various brines, and ocean-derived mineral deposits of salts known as “evaporite minerals.”

Combines easily to form these very well-known compounds, among many others

  • Sodium chloride (NaCl)—Known widely as common table salt, sodium chloride is an important component of the diets of both people and animals. Sodium chloride is the primary feedstock of chlorine for the chemical industry.
  • Hydrochloric acid (HCl)—A strong acid, hydrochloric acid is extremely useful for titration, reacting with unknown bases to determine their composition. Hydrochloric acid also has many uses including processing steel and food products like gelatin and sugar, and producing batteries. In humans, it is produced in our stomachs to help digest food.
  • Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—Most PVC compounds are made using sodium chloride. They are extremely useful thermoplastics that can replace rubber or metal pipes. Additionally, they are very lightweight and are also used for many purposes in the healthcare industry, such as tubing.
  • Magnesium chloride (MgCl2)—Found in seawater and serves as a natural source of metal magnesium. Magnesium is not only used to create alloys for manufacturing processes, but it is also the fourth most prevalent element in the human body and essential for nutrition.
Cl Atom

Norton disk doctor for mac. Discover all the products made possible by chlorine chemistry through our chlorine and sodium hydroxide product trees.

A workhorse element with a wide range of important applications

Below are some of the primary uses of chlorine chemistry:

Cl Atomic Radius

  • Swimming pool water—Kills germs in pool water to help control the spread of waterborne illnesses.
  • Drinking water—A major part of the water treatment process, chlorine-based disinfectants have residual disinfection activity that prevents the regrowth of pathogens in the water distribution system.
  • Disinfection—Bleach solutions are used extensively in restaurants, schools, hospitals, homes, and other settings to disinfect surfaces, destroying pathogens, including norovirus, hepatitis A, Ebola, influenza, and many more.
  • Food safety—Sanitizes food contact surfaces, and dilute chlorine bleach solutions are sometimes sprayed on fresh produce to reduce spoilage and the potential growth of pathogens.
  • Crop production—Used to manufacture 89% of the 100 top-selling crop protectants sold in North America.
  • Healthcare—Used to manufacture 88% of the top-selling pharmaceuticals sold in North America, and is essential to the manufacture of many types of medical products, such as blood bags, tubing, and titanium alloy implants and prostheses.
  • Manufacturing—Used in the manufacturing process of a bevy of industrial compounds and products, including titanium dioxide, environmentally preferred refrigerants, ultra-pure silicon, manufacturing of ethylene and propylene oxides, glycols, synthetic glycerin, tetraethyl lead, phosgene, and more.
  • Paper—Used as an oxidizing and bleaching agent in the pulp and paper industry.
Article
Please select which sections you would like to print:
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Cl Atom Structure

Viktor GutmannSee All ContributorsCl Atom
Emeritus Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, Technical University of Vienna. Author of Halogen Chemistry and others.
Cl atomic mass rounded
Alternative Titles: Group 17 element, Group VIIa element, halogen element

Halogen, any of the six nonmetallic elements that constitute Group 17 (Group VIIa) of the periodic table. The halogen elements are fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), iodine (I), astatine (At), and tennessine (Ts). They were given the name halogen, from the Greek roots hal- (“salt”) and -gen (“to produce”), because they all produce sodiumsalts of similar properties, of which sodium chloride—table salt, or halite—is best known.

What are halogen elements?

The halogen elements are the six elements in Group 17 of the periodic table. Group 17 is the second column from the right in the periodic table and contains six elements: fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), iodine (I), astatine (As), and tennessine (Ts). Astatine and tennessine are radioactive elements with very short half-lives and thus do not occur naturally.

What are the major properties of the halogen elements?

Mac os yosemite icons for ubuntu. Halogen elements are very reactive. They produce salts with sodium, of which table salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) is the most well-known. The halogen elements have seven valence electrons in their outermost electron shell. Therefore, when these elements can receive an electron from another atom, they form very stable compounds since their outermost shell is full.

What are some uses of halogen elements?

Chlorine is used to purify water. Chlorine also is part of salt, sodium chloride, which is one of the most widely used chemical compounds. Fluorine is used in fluorides, which are added to water supplies to prevent tooth decay. Iodine is used as an antiseptic.

Why are these elements called halogens?

Cl Atom

When these elements react with sodium, they produce salts. The most well-known of these is sodium chloride, or common table salt (also called halite). The word halogen comes from the Greek roots hal- meaning “salt” and -gen meaning “to produce.”

Because of their great reactivity, the free halogen elements are not found in nature. In combined form, fluorine is the most abundant of the halogens in Earth’s crust. The percentages of the halogens in the igneous rocks of Earth’s crust are 0.06 fluorine, 0.031 chlorine, 0.00016 bromine, and 0.00003 iodine. Astatine and tennessine do not occur in nature, because they consist of only short-lived radioactive isotopes.

The halogen elements show great resemblances to one another in their general chemical behaviour and in the properties of their compounds with other elements. Mac driver for hp p1102. There is, however, a progressive change in properties from fluorine through chlorine, bromine, and iodine to astatine—the difference between two successive elements being most pronounced with fluorine and chlorine. Fluorine is the most reactive of the halogens and, in fact, of all elements, and it has certain other properties that set it apart from the other halogens.

Cl Atomic Model

Atom

Chlorine is the best known of the halogen elements. The free element is widely used as a water-purification agent, and it is employed in a number of chemical processes. Table salt, sodium chloride, of course, is one of the most familiar chemical compounds. Fluorides are known chiefly for their addition to public water supplies to prevent tooth decay, but organic fluorides are also used as refrigerants and lubricants. Iodine is most familiar as an antiseptic, and bromine is used chiefly to prepare bromine compounds that are used in flame retardants and as general pesticides. In the past ethylene dibromide was extensively used as an additive in leaded gasoline.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

Oxidation

Probably the most important generalization that can be made about the halogen elements is that they are all oxidizing agents; i.e., they raise the oxidation state, or oxidation number, of other elements—a property that used to be equated with combination with oxygen but that is now interpreted in terms of transfer of electrons from one atom to another. In oxidizing another element, a halogen is itself reduced; i.e., the oxidation number 0 of the free element is reduced to −1. The halogens can combine with other elements to form compounds known as halides—namely, fluorides, chlorides, bromides, iodides, and astatides. Many of the halides may be considered to be salts of the respective hydrogen halides, which are colourless gases at room temperature and atmospheric pressure and (except for hydrogen fluoride) form strong acids in aqueous solution. Indeed, the general term salt is derived from rock salt, or table salt (sodium chloride). The tendency of the halogen elements to form saltlike (i.e., highly ionic) compounds increases in the following order: astatine < iodine < bromine < chlorine < fluorine. Fluorides are usually more stable than the corresponding chlorides, bromides, or iodides. (Often astatine is omitted from general discussions of the halogens because less is known about it than about the other elements.)

The oxidizing strength of the halogens increases in the same order—i.e., from astatine to fluorine. Therefore, of the halogen elements, elemental fluorine is prepared with the greatest difficulty and iodine with the least. As a class, the halogen elements are nonmetals, but astatine shows certain properties resembling those of the metals.

Electronic structure

The chemical behaviour of the halogen elements can be discussed most conveniently in terms of their position in the periodic table of the elements. In the periodic table the halogens make up Group 17 (according to the numbering system adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry), the group immediately preceding the noble gases. The halogen atoms carry seven valence electrons in their outermost electron shell. These seven outermost electrons are in two different kinds of orbitals, designated s (with two electrons) and p (with five). Potentially, a halogen atom could hold one more electron (in a p orbital), which would give the resulting halide ion the same arrangement (configuration) as that of the noble gas next to it in the periodic table. These electron configurations are exceptionally stable. This pronounced tendency of the halogens to acquire an additional electron renders them strong oxidizers.

At room temperature and atmospheric pressure the halogen elements in their free states exist as diatomic molecules. In molecular fluorine (F2) the atoms are held together by a bond made from the union of a p orbital from each atom, with such a bond being classed as a sigma bond. It should be mentioned that the dissociation energy for fluorine (the energy necessary to break the F―F bond) is over 30 percent smaller than that of chlorine but is similar to that of iodine (I2). The weakness of the F―F single bond compared with chlorine can be ascribed to the small size of fluorine resulting in a decreased overlap of bonding orbitals and an increased repulsion of the nonbonding orbitals. In iodine, however, the p orbitals are more diffuse, which means the bond becomes weaker than in chlorine or bromine.

The Atom Of Chlorine

Quick Facts

Chlorine Model Of The Atom

key people
related topics