Chemistry · Ch 8 — Transition and Inner Transition Elements
Metallic character
Metallic character
Low ionisation enthalpies and vacant d orbitals in the outermost shell are responsible for the metallic character of the transition elements. These favour the formation of metallic bonds, and thus these elements show typical metallic properties. The hard nature of these elements suggests the formation of covalent bonds in them. This is possible due to the presence of unpaired (n-1)d electrons in these elements.
Nearly all transition metals have simple hexagonal closed packed (hcp), cubic closed packed (ccp) or body centered cubic (bcc) lattices, which are characteristic of true metals (You have learnt more about this in Chapter 1).
Hardness, high melting points and metallic properties of the transition elements indicate that the metal atoms are held strongly by metallic bonds with covalent character. …