The melting points for the second-series transition elements increase from 1522 °C for yttrium to 2623 °C for molybdenum and then decrease to 321 °C for cadmium. Account for the trend using band theory.

Video transcript

Hello everyone today we are being given the following problem. Which of the period for transition metals would you expect to have the highest melting point? Account for your answer using band theory. So, band theory? Band theory. It's a theory regarding transition metals and it states that transition metals have this D orbital. So they have D orbital's that they can use to overlap with s orbital's and in this overlapping process they form and S. D. Band That's composed of three bonding orbital's and three anti bonding orbital's. So three bonding orbital's and three anti bonding orbital's. Now, we're being asked to find which one has the highest melting point. So with melting point we're going to have a higher melting point that's related with an increase in bonding electrons. On the other hand, we're going to have a decrease in our melting point with more anti bonding electrons. And this has to do with energy and such. So if you look at the perspective of a transition metal, so a melting point of a transition metal, these have to reach a maximum four. So they reached a maximum For group six B elements And six B elements have six valence electrons. In other words, the only metal here that aligns with that is going to be D or chromium. And with that we've answered our question overall, I hope that this helped. And until next time