All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 30, a transition metal
The coating that keeps steel from rusting, the core of the modern US penny, and a mineral your immune system cannot work without.
Period 4, group 12. The other transition metals are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Zinc has 30 electrons, one for every proton, so the atom carries no charge. Below are the same 30 electrons written two ways.
1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 3d¹⁰ 4s²
Short form: [Ar] 3d¹⁰ 4s², where [Ar] stands for the 18 electrons argon already has.
That list runs by shell. In the order the subshells fill it reads [Ar] 4s² 3d¹⁰, because a subshell fills by its energy, not by its shell number.
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 3 here is 3s² 3p⁶ 3d¹⁰, and 2 + 6 + 10 is 18.
Zinc sits in period 4 and has 4 shells. The period number counts the shells.
The outer shell holds 2 electrons. Those are the ones zinc can lose, gain or share, so they are the ones that decide what it bonds with.
Zinc gives up its two 4s electrons to form Zn²⁺ and almost never loses a d electron. Unlike most transition metals it has only one common ion, and its compounds are usually white.
Mined mostly as sphalerite (ZnS), often together with lead, in China, Peru and Australia. After iron, it is the most abundant trace metal in the human body.
Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, was made in ancient times, and zinc metal was being smelted in India centuries before Europe knew it. Andreas Marggraf isolated it in 1746 and described the method carefully. The name comes from the German Zink, perhaps from Zinke, prong, after the jagged crystals of the metal.
About half is used to galvanize steel, coating it so the zinc corrodes instead of the iron. Zinc also makes brass, die-cast parts and alkaline battery anodes, and US pennies minted since 1982 are 97.5% zinc under a thin copper plating. Zinc oxide goes into sunscreen, diaper cream, rubber tires and paint.