All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 16, a nonmetal
The yellow brimstone of old stories, a solid made of rings of eight atoms, and the element behind the smell of rotten eggs.
Period 3, group 16. The other nonmetals are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Sulfur has 16 electrons, one for every proton, so the atom carries no charge. Below are the same 16 electrons written two ways.
1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁴
Short form: [Ne] 3s² 3p⁴, where [Ne] stands for the 10 electrons neon already has.
The simple form counts electrons shell by shell. The orbital form says which subshell each one sits in: s holds 2, p holds 6, d holds 10 and f holds 14. Shell 2 here is 2s² 2p⁶, and 2 + 6 is 8.
Sulfur sits in period 3 and has 3 shells. The period number counts the shells.
The outer shell holds 6 electrons. Those are the ones sulfur can lose, gain or share, so they are the ones that decide what it bonds with. For a main-group element the group number gives that count: group 16 means 6.
Six valence electrons, two short of eight, so sulfur gains two to form S²⁻ or shares electrons in covalent bonds. Solid sulfur is made of S₈ molecules, rings of eight atoms.
Found free near volcanoes and hot springs and in deep underground deposits, and combined in minerals such as pyrite (fool's gold) and gypsum. Today most sulfur is removed from natural gas and crude oil during refining, where it would otherwise pollute the air as sulfur dioxide.
Known since ancient times as brimstone, burning stone. Antoine Lavoisier convinced chemists in 1777 that it was an element, not a compound. The name comes from the Latin sulpur; chemists worldwide now spell it sulfur.
Most becomes sulfuric acid, made in larger amounts than any other industrial chemical and used for fertilizers, metal refining and car batteries. Sulfur also hardens the rubber in tires, a process called vulcanization, and goes into matches, gunpowder, fungicides and medicines.
Burning sulfur gives off choking sulfur dioxide. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic even at low levels and deadens the sense of smell, so a rotten-egg smell that fades is a warning, not relief.