General Trend in Properties

Having established how the general electronic configuration Noble gasd¹⁻¹⁰ns¹⁻² arises, this section works through ten distinct physical and chemical consequences of that configuration across the 3d transition series, taken as the representative case: metallic behaviour and crystal structure (4.3.1), the surprising near-constancy of atomic and ionic size across most of the series (4.3.2), the pattern of ionization enthalpy (4.3.3), the range of accessible oxidation states (4.3.4), standard electrode potentials and their link to oxidising/reducing power (4.3.5), magnetic behaviour arising from unpaired d electrons (4.3.6), catalytic activity exploiting available d orbitals and variable oxidation states (4.3.7), the tendency to form substitutional alloys (4.3.8), the tendency to form interstitial compounds with small non-metal atoms (4.3.9), and the tendency to form coordination complexe …