Q.(i) Copper has completely filled 'd' orbital in its ground state. How can you say that it is a transition element?

By the IUPAC definition, a transition metal is an element whose atom has an incomplete d sub-shell, or which can give rise to a cation with an incomplete d sub-shell. Transition metals occupy the central block of the periodic table (groups 3-12), forming a bridge between the highly reactive s-block metals and the mostly non-metallic p-block elements -- their properties are genuinely transitional between the two. Except for the group-11 metals (Cu, Ag, Au), transition metals are hard solids with very high melting points, and they are good conductors of heat and electricity.

There are three complete transition series: the 3d series (Sc to Zn, period 4, 10 elements), the 4d series (Y to Cd, period 5, 10 elements), and the 5d series (La, then Hf to Hg, period 6, 10 elements) -- plus a partial, entirely radioactive 7th-period series (Ac, Rf to Cn) whose members (bar actinium) are all synthetic with very short half-lives. Zn, Cd and Hg (group 12) have a completely filled d¹⁰ configuration in both their elemental and normal +2 states, so strictly they fail the IUPAC test -- but they are conventionally still classed as transition metals because their properties are a direct extension of their transition-metal neighbours. …