Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal in the periodic table: 3422 °C. The distance between W atoms in tungsten metal is 274 pm. (b) If you put tungsten metal under high pressure, predict what would happen to the distance between W atoms.

Video transcript

All right. Hi, everyone. So this question says that chromium has a very high melting point of 1907 °C. The difference between or excuse me, the distance between chromium atoms in chromium metal is 252 PICO meter. If you put chromium metal under high pressure, predict what would happen to the distance between chromium atoms. Option A says the distance between chromium atoms is expected to increase. Option B says the distance is expected to decrease and option C says the distance is expected to remain the same. Now for a question like this, right? It's worth mentioning that the question describes placing chromium metal under very high pressure. In other words, we're going to compress our sample of chromium metal now because we're compressing the sample and we're subjecting it to such high pressure. Then what that means is that the chromium atoms are going to be pushed closer together, right? That pressure surrounding chromium is going to push chromium atoms even closer together still now because chromium metal is a solid, there's already such little space between them, but the added pressure is going to force the chromium atoms even closer together still. So really the distance between them is expected to decrease as a result of this compression. Now, it's worth mentioning also that because chromium metal is a solid, right, the effects of this compression may not necessarily be visible to the naked eye. And this is because a solid already has its atoms or particles in general, incredibly close together to maintain its solid shape. Now, this is in comparison to subjecting either a gas or a liquid to the same high pressure when compressing either a gas or a liquid. By that point, you're more likely to see some sort of visible change, for example, a phase change. But nonetheless, in the case of a solid, the distance between chromium atoms is expected to decrease, even still, you just might not be able to see a difference. So that means our answer is going to be option B in the multiple choice and there you have it. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching and I hope you found this hopeful.