Could metal be made liquid?

Originally posted by Glyph_D


just to touch up here the electron field has very much to do with the nucleus, its the relationship between the electrons and protons that create stability.

No, it doesn't, not at all. Where are you getting this? There's no such thing as an "electron field" anyway, perhaps you mean electric field? At any rate, it's an easy matter to strip the sole electron off of a hydrogen...what do you think happens? The charge *within* the nucleus affects the nucleus, but that isn't related to the electrons in the atom's orbitals.

as i said above if you remove an electron, BUT are able to deny that atom from replacing it. you create a situation of instability which will cause an atomic restructuring. this scenario is not likey due to the natural transfer of electrons.

No, it's quite straight forward to produce ions, and you can make them last quite a while. And no, it doesn't cause nuclear instability or "atomic restructuring". What goes on in the electron orbitals has no effect whatsoever on the nucleus. We're talking basic chemistry here. I have no clue what would lead you to believe that this is true.

Originally posted by T Trubballshoota
Years ago a tutor said to me that gold was pretty much full of electrons in its outer layer/shell. That was why it was a good conductor.

He went on to say, take even one electron away and it becomes an insulator. So you still have gold but its property has changed. I have never looked this up but I find it amusing that such an important conductor for electronics could be an insulator...gold capacitors

Whatever be the case, surely removing electrons must have an effect on an atom, other than just making it an ion. The electrical charge changes so its ability to react with others must change. I mean as a thought experiment remove all 92 electrons from a Uranium atom what happens?
Surely it must be more than just an ion?

Any theoretical chemists out there?

Nope, you just get an ion.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
No, it doesn't, not at all. Where are you getting this? There's no such thing as an "electron field" anyway, perhaps you mean electric field? At any rate, it's an easy matter to strip the sole electron off of a hydrogen...what do you think happens? The charge *within* the nucleus affects the nucleus, but that isn't related to the electrons in the atom's orbitals.

wait a minute what are you taking about.

i was talking about the orbitals(d-orbital s-orbital)

if you are talking about the ions that pass through the electromagnetic field..sure, but im not referring to that and i dont think the OP was either.



help me here plz



ok i re read your post it makes more sense now. but why do you think the orbitals have no effect?? in your mind how do the protons stay together(its not the neutrons), with out the help of the orbitals???


proton= + charge

electron= - charge

neutron= -/+ charge


right??


ionizing a material isnt how your saying it done (i dont think, i guess i need to brush up on my studies:/)

[edit on 12/2/07 by Glyph_D]

Inside the nucleus, you have particles with electric charge. Protons are the most obvious, but you can think of a neutron as being a somewhat tightly bound proton-electron combination. That is, a neutron has a dipole moment as if it were a charge-pair, and outside a nucleus, or inside an unbalanced nucleus, it will become unstable, eventually emit an electron and become a proton.

Inside the nucleus, you have this struggle going on between the strong nuclear force, the proton charge, and the neutron dipole moments. So, yes, inside the nucleus are electric fields that relate to the stability of the nucleus. These do not relate to, depend on, nor are they affected by any of the electrons in the atom's orbitals or electron shells, as they used to call them.

However, the OP asked, and I'm pretty sure you're commenting on, what happens when you remove one or more electrons from an orbital, since there's no way to cause a change to the nucleus with EM fields or chemistry.

You can happily remove each and every electron from an atom's orbitals, and you'll end up with nothing more than a more and more ionized atom. For hydrogen, it only has one electron. You can remove it quite easily, I think it's something like 12 EV off the top of my head, and it will be a free proton. And that's all it will be...ionized hydrogen. It won't turn into something else, just because its electron has been stripped off.

This is true for any element. The nucleus dictates the type of element it is, and that is only subject to the strong, weak and intranuclear electric field. The presence or absence of electrons in the orbitals is meaningless to the nuclear stability. That's why you can't use chemistry to make new elements.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
So, yes, inside the nucleus are electric fields that relate to the stability of the nucleus. These do not relate to, depend on, nor are they affected by any of the electrons in the atom's orbitals or electron shells, as they used to call them.

ive never heard that, from any where. could you link me with that one.


im not saying your wrong, but i havent been with the times lately. if there wqas a break through i missed i would very much like to read it.


from what i know of ionizing a particle you add or remove electrons from its outer most shell.

less electrons create a positive charge, more create a negative charge. but moving into additional shells?? when was this done??

EDIT:i had the wrong quote fixed now



it must also be stated to orbitals are a theoretical perspective, created from QM and its probability engine.

[edit on 12/2/07 by Glyph_D]

Reading your last post, did you think that without the electrons in charge balance, the protons would repel each other and go flying out of the nucleus?

That's not how it works. Yes, they are charged, and do repel each other. Left to their own devices, they would go flying. However, the electrons in the orbitals wouldn't keep them in there, they would make them more likely to leave by attracting them.

However, the strong force keeps them stuck together. Enough protons in the pile and you have to add in some neutrons to keep the charge density low enough. Then you get into all sorts of other issues as you get bigger and bigger, for example, the nucleus behaves a lot like a fluid droplet, and oscillates the way that a little droplet would. In some cases, you can whack the nucleus with enough energy (typically by injecting a neutron) that it may form a dumbbell shape during its oscillations, if that happens, you can get enough charge concentrated just right so that the strong force is overpowered by the electric force, and then the atom will fission.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Reading your last post, did you think that without the electrons in charge balance, the protons would repel each other and go flying out of the nucleus?

well yes and no- more so it will dissipates and become lower atoms.

However, the strong force keeps them stuck together. Enough protons in the pile and you have to add in some neutrons to keep the charge density low enough.

so your saying an atom can sustain without any electron??


ill have to look into that.

The Hutchison effect can supposedly produce an effect that can liquify metals at room temperature. I'm sure most are aware of it but here's a wiki link anyway.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hutchison himself has said to have done this and even some of his videos seem to show this effect. However as far as I know it's never been duplicated or at least its never been published if it has.

No, you can rip them all loose. It takes more and more energy to get each succeeding electron off. The most straightforward one is hydrogen, and it only has one. If you peel it off, you get a bare proton.

Offhand, (I'm in the share lab working on a power supply) I think for heavier metals getting down to the last shell you're in X-ray territory as far as what it takes to peel the next one off.

Edit: I'm sort of tied up but I took a fast peek and couldn't find any good starter level stuff, it's all in my old Tipler and whatever modern physics book we used in the bachelors course.

You might try googling ["strong force" proton charge repel] and looking at the basics level stuff about how nuclei hold together despite the protonic charge. Then try "fully ionized gas", there's probably some others on materials with all the electrons stripped out. If I find something that looks particularly instructive I'll try to post it.

second edit: But to address the op, I think if you could wave a magic wand and fully ionize the metal, you'll get a big 'POP!' and the metal will become a gas due to the mutual repulsion of the bare nuclei.

[edit on 12-2-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

[edit on 12-2-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

From what I understand Tom Bedlam is more correct.

First of all we are dealing with just the electrons and not the nucleus. By the way, as a side note, a neutron will decay into a proton, electron and neutrino.

Scientist have completely stripped simple atoms of all their electrons. I read a story about two months ago about that. I recall they were able to completely strip about twelve electrons. That would mean they could take magnesium strip all of its electrons and be left with pure magnesium nucleus's and no electrons.

We are not dealing with nuclear physics. We are dealing with chemical principals. Plasma physics plays a big part also. Especially because we live in a plasma. Sorry, different story.

Could any of you with knowledge of chemistry help me understand metallic bonding? From what I have read it is different than ionic or covalent bonding. Am I wrong? I am under the impression that it is not the outer most electrons that form the bond but the second or third electrons. That leaves the more loosely bound electrons to move about freely in the metallic lattice.

Yes, electrons in a metal tend to behave somewhat like an ideal gas. You may hear them referred to that way "electron gas" or "Drude metal" as an ideal metal in which the electron population behaves as a gas.