Sodium

Sodium (symbol Na) is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals; its only stable isotope is ²³Na. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite and rock salt. Many salts of sodium are highly soluble in water and are thus present in significant quantities in the Earth's bodies of water, most abundantly in the oceans as sodium chloride.

Many sodium compounds are useful, such as sodium hydroxide (lye) for soapmaking, and sodium chloride for use as a deicing agent and a nutrient. The same ion is also a component of many minerals, such as sodium nitrate.

The free metal, elemental sodium, does not occur in nature but must be prepared from sodium compounds. Elemental sodium was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1807 by the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide.

Magnesium

Magnesium (symbol Mg) is an alkaline earth metal and has common oxidation number +2. It is the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust^[2] and the ninth in the known universe as a whole.^[3][4] Magnesium is the fourth most common element in the Earth as a whole (behind iron, oxygen and silicon), making up 13% of the planet's mass and a large fraction of the planet's mantle. It is relatively abundant because it is easily built up in supernova stars by sequential additions of three helium nuclei to carbon (which in turn is made from three helium nuclei). Due to the magnesium ion's high solubility in water, it is the third most abundant element dissolved in seawater.^[5]

The free element (metal) is not found naturally on Earth, as it is highly reactive (though once produced, it is coated in a thin layer of oxide [see passivation], which partly masks this reactivity). The free metal burns with a characteristic brilliant white light, making it a useful ingredient in flares. The metal is now mainly obtained by electrolysis of magnesium salts obtained from brine. Commercially, the chief use for the metal is as an alloying agent to make aluminium-magnesium alloys, sometimes called "magnalium" or "magnelium". Since magnesium is less dense than aluminium, these alloys are prized for their relative lightness and strength.

Magnesium ions are sour to the taste, and in low concentrations help to impart a natural tartness to fresh mineral waters.

Aluminium

Aluminium (symbol Al) or aluminum (American English) is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements and a p-block metal classified by some chemists as a post-transition metal.^[6] It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances. Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal, in the Earth's crust. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth's solid surface. Aluminium metal is too reactive chemically to occur natively. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals.^[7] The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite.

Aluminium is remarkable for the metal's low density and for its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. The most useful compounds of aluminium, at least on a weight basis, are the oxides and sulfates.

Silicon

Silicon (symbol Si) is a group 14 metalloid. It is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table. Controversy about silicon's character dates from its discovery: silicon was first prepared and characterized in pure form in 1824, and given the name silicium (from Latin: silicis, flints), with an -ium word-ending to suggest a metal. However, its final name, suggested in 1831, reflects the more chemically similar elements carbon and boron.

Silicon is the eighth most common element in the universe by mass, but very rarely occurs as the pure free element in nature. It is most widely distributed in dusts, sands, planetoids and planets as various forms of silicon dioxide (silica) or silicates. Over 90% of the Earth's crust is composed of silicate minerals, making silicon the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust (about 28% by mass) after oxygen.^[8]

Most silicon is used commercially without being separated, and indeed often with little processing of compounds from nature. These include direct industrial building use of clays, silica sand and stone. Silica is used in ceramic brick. Silicate goes into Portland cement for mortar and stucco, and combined with silica sand and gravel, to make concrete. Silicates are also in whiteware ceramics such as porcelain, and in traditional quartz-based soda–lime glass. More modern silicon compounds such as silicon carbide form abrasives and high-strength ceramics. Silicon is the basis of the ubiquitous synthetic silicon-based polymers called silicones.

Elemental silicon also has a large impact on the modern world economy. Although most free silicon is used in the steel refining, aluminum-casting, and fine chemical industries (often to make fumed silica), the relatively small portion of very highly purified silicon that is used in semiconductor electronics (< 10%) is perhaps even more critical. Because of wide use of silicon in integrated circuits, the basis of most computers, a great deal of modern technology depends on it.

Phosphorus

Phosphorus (symbol P) is a multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized (pentavalent) state, as inorganic phosphate rocks. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms—white phosphorus and red phosphorus—but due to its high reactivity, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth.

The first form of elemental phosphorus to be produced (white phosphorus, in 1669) emits a faint glow upon exposure to oxygen – hence its name given from Greek mythology, Φωσφόρος meaning "light-bearer" (Latin: Lucifer), referring to the "Morning Star", the planet Venus. Although the term "phosphorescence", meaning glow after illumination, derives from this property of phosphorus, the glow of phosphorus originates from oxidation of the white (but not red) phosphorus and should be called chemiluminescence. It is also the lightest element to easily produce stable exceptions to the octet rule.

The vast majority of phosphorus compounds are consumed as fertilizers. Other applications include the role of organophosphorus compounds in detergents, pesticides and nerve agents and matches.^[9]

Sulfur

Sulfur (symbol S) is an abundant multivalent nonmetal, one of chalcogens. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S₈. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow crystalline solid when at room temperature. Chemically, sulfur can react as either an oxidant or a reducing agent. It oxidizes most metals and several nonmetals, including carbon, which leads to its negative charge in most organosulfur compounds, but it reduces several strong oxidants, such as oxygen and fluorine.

In nature, sulfur can be found as the pure element and as sulfide and sulfate minerals. Elemental sulfur crystals are commonly sought after by mineral collectors for their brightly colored polyhedron shapes. Being abundant in native form, sulfur was known in ancient times, mentioned for its uses in ancient Greece, China and Egypt. Sulfur fumes were used as fumigants, and sulfur-containing medicinal mixtures were used as balms and antiparasitics. Sulfur is referenced in the Bible as brimstone in English, with this name still used in several nonscientific terms.^[10] Sulfur was considered important enough to receive its own alchemical symbol. It was needed to make the best quality of black gunpowder, and the bright yellow powder was hypothesized by alchemists to contain some of the properties of gold, which they sought to synthesize from it. In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier helped convince the scientific community that sulfur was a basic element, rather than a compound.

Elemental sulfur was once extracted from salt domes, where it sometimes occurs in nearly pure form, but this method has been obsolete since the late 20th century. Today, almost all elemental sulfur is produced as a byproduct of removing sulfur-containing contaminants from natural gas and petroleum. The element's commercial uses are primarily in fertilizers, because of the relatively high requirement of plants for it, and in the manufacture of sulfuric acid, a primary industrial chemical. Other well-known uses for the element are in matches, insecticides and fungicides. Many sulfur compounds are odiferous, and the smell of odorized natural gas, skunk scent, grapefruit, and garlic is due to sulfur compounds. Hydrogen sulfide produced by living organisms imparts the characteristic odor to rotting eggs and other biological processes.

Chlorine

Chlorine (symbol Cl) is the second-lightest halogen. The element forms diatomic molecules under standard conditions, called dichlorine. It has the highest electron affinity and the one of highest electronegativity of all the elements; thus chlorine is a strong oxidizing agent.

The most common compound of chlorine, sodium chloride (table salt), has been known since ancient times; however, around 1630, chlorine gas was obtained by the Belgian chemist and physician Jan Baptist van Helmont. The synthesis and characterization of elemental chlorine occurred in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it "dephlogisticated muriatic acid air", as he thought he synthesized the oxide obtained from the hydrochloric acid, because acids were thought at the time to necessarily contain oxygen. A number of chemists, including Claude Berthollet, suggested that Scheele's "dephlogisticated muriatic acid air" must be a combination of oxygen and the yet undiscovered element, and Scheele named the supposed new element within this oxide as muriaticum. The suggestion that this newly discovered gas was a simple element was made in 1809 by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis-Jacques. This was confirmed in 1810 by Sir Humphry Davy, who named it chlorine, from the Greek word χλωρός (chlōros), meaning "green-yellow".

Chlorine is a component of many other compounds. It is the second most abundant halogen and 21st most abundant chemical element in Earth's crust. The great oxidizing power of chlorine led it to its bleaching and disinfectant uses, as well as being an essential reagent in the chemical industry. As a common disinfectant, chlorine compounds are used in swimming pools to keep them clean and sanitary. In the upper atmosphere, chlorine-containing molecules such as chlorofluorocarbons have been implicated in ozone depletion.

Argon

Argon (symbol Ar) is the third element in group 18, the noble gases. Argon is the third most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere, at 0.93%, making it more common than carbon dioxide. Nearly all of this argon is radiogenic argon-40 derived from the decay of potassium-40 in the Earth's crust. In the universe, argon-36 is by far the most common argon isotope, being the preferred argon isotope produced by stellar nucleosynthesis.

The name "argon" is derived from the Greek neuter adjective ἀργόν, meaning "lazy" or "the inactive one", as the element undergoes almost no chemical reactions. The complete octet (eight electrons) in the outer atomic shell makes argon stable and resistant to bonding with other elements. Its triple point temperature of 83.8058 K is a defining fixed point in the International Temperature Scale of 1990.

Argon is produced industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air. Argon is mostly used as an inert shielding gas in welding and other high-temperature industrial processes where ordinarily non-reactive substances become reactive: for example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning. Argon gas also has uses in incandescent and fluorescent lighting, and other types of gas discharge tubes. Argon makes a distinctive blue–green gas laser.