ERROR 1
ERROR 1
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
Password and Confirm password must match.
If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)
ERROR 2
ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.
Material properties change at high pressure. Scientists can generate pressures millions of times above ambient pressure and, in doing so, have found near-room-temperature superconductors, polymeric nitrogen, and other surprises. To better understand how elements behave under pressure, Martin Rahm of Chalmers University of Technology and colleagues predicted the electronegativity and electron configuration of individual atoms of elements 1 through 96—except for thorium, uranium, and neptunium, which they could not calculate—in a nonreactive environment up to 300 GPa (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b02634).
Rahm says some of a chemist’s intuition about periodic trends breaks down for high-pressure systems, and he wanted to provide a guide to this regime. The researchers confirmed that under pressure, electronic orbitals generally fill according to the principal quantum number. In potassium, for instance, the 3d orbital fills before the 4s at 300 GPa, the opposite of what happens at ambient pressure. They calculated that trends of electronegativity are less predictable at high pressure for elements in groups 1–10, the lanthanides and actinides. Rahm says the results could help predict changes in polarity or reactivity at high pressure.
Join the conversation
Contact the reporter
Submit a Letter to the Editor for publication
Engage with us on Twitter