Thallium, elemental

C21-0042. From Its position in the periodic table, predict the properties of thallium (Element 81). 

Write the electronic configuration for thallium (element 81), using the shortened notation. 

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists threshold limit value, 8 h time-weighted average, for thallium (elemental and soluble compounds) is 0.1 mg m with a skin exposure warning. 

EINECS 231-138-1 HSDB 4496 Ramor Thallium Thallium, elemental Thallium, metallic. Metallic elem-ent thallium salts, mercury alloys, low-melting glasses, rodenticides, photoelectric applications, electrodes in dissolved oxygen analyzers, mp = 303° bp = 1457° d = 11.85. Atomergic Chemetals, Cerac Noah Cham. Sigma-Aldrich Fine Chem. 

The more metallic elements, indium and thallium, do not react in spite of the fact that In(OH)3 is amphoteric. 

In the absence of oxygen, gallium and indium are unaffected by water. Thallium, the most metallic element in Group III, reacts slowly with hot water and readily with steam to produce thallium(I) oxide, TI2O. 

Only thallium of the Group III elements is affected by air at room temperature and thalliumflll) oxide is slowly formed. All the elements, however, burn in air when strongly heated and, with the exception of gallium, form the oxide M2O3 gallium forms a mixed oxide of composition GaO. In addition to oxide formation, boron and aluminium react at high temperature with the nitrogen in the air to form nitrides (BN and AIN). 

Gr. thallos, a green shoot or twig) Thallium was discovered spectroscopically in 1861 by Crookes. The element was named after the beautiful green spectral line, which identified the element. The metal was isolated both by Crookes and Lamy in 1862 about the same time. 

The element and its compounds are toxic and should be handled carefully. Contact of the metal with skin is dangerous, and when melting the metal adequate ventilation should be provided. Exposure to thallium (soluble compounds) - skin, as Tl, should not exceed 0.1 mg/ms (8-hour time-weighted average - 40-hour work week). Thallium is suspected of carcinogenic potential for... 

Some elements found in body tissues have no apparent physiological role, but have not been shown to be toxic. Examples are mbidium, strontium, titanium, niobium, germanium, and lanthanum. Other elements are toxic when found in greater than trace amounts, and sometimes in trace amounts. These latter elements include arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, silver, zirconium, beryUium, and thallium. Numerous other elements are used in medicine in nonnutrient roles. These include lithium, bismuth, antimony, bromine, platinum, and gold (Eig. 1). The interactions of mineral nutrients with... 

Hydrogen combines with many elements to form binary hydrides MH (or M H ). All the main-group elements except the noble gases and perhaps indium and thallium form hydrides, as do all the lanthanoids and actinoids that have been studied. Hydrides are also formed by the more electropositive transition elements, notably Sc, Y, La, Ac Ti, Zr, Hf and to a lesser... 

Indium (0.24 ppm) is similar in abundance to Sb and Cd, whereas T1 (0.7 ppm) is close to Tm and somewhat less abundant than Mo, W and Tb (1.2 ppm). Both elements are chalcophiles (p. 648), indium tending to associate with the similarly sized Zn in its sulfide minerals whilst the larger T1 tends to replace Pb in galena, PbS. Thallium(I) has a similar radius to Rb and so also concentrates with this element in the late magmatic potassium minerals such as feldspars and micas. 

The binary compounds of the Group 13 metals with the elements of Group 15 (N, P, As, Sb, Bi) are stmcturally less diverse than the chalcogenides just considered but they have achieved considerable technological application as III-V semiconductors isoelectronic with Si and Ge (cf. BN isoelectronic with C, p. 207). Their stmctures are summarized in Table 7.10 all adopt the cubic ZnS stmcture except the nitrides of Al, Ga and In which are probably more ionic (less covalent or metallic) than the others. Thallium does not form simple compounds... 

Lead (13 ppm) is by far the most abundant of the heavy elements, being approached amongst these only by thallium (8.1 ppm) and uranium (2.3 ppm). This abundance is related to the fact that 3 of the 4 naturally occurring isotopes of lead (206, 207 and 208) arise primarily as the stable end products of the natural radioactive series. Only (1.4%)... 

The reaction is a sensitive one, but is subject to a number of interferences. The solution must be free from large amounts of lead, thallium (I), copper, tin, arsenic, antimony, gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, and from elements in sufficient quantity to colour the solution, e.g. nickel. Metals giving insoluble iodides must be absent, or present in amounts not yielding a precipitate. Substances which liberate iodine from potassium iodide interfere, for example iron(III) the latter should be reduced with sulphurous acid and the excess of gas boiled off, or by a 30 per cent solution of hypophosphorous acid. Chloride ion reduces the intensity of the bismuth colour. Separation of bismuth from copper can be effected by extraction of the bismuth as dithizonate by treatment in ammoniacal potassium cyanide solution with a 0.1 per cent solution of dithizone in chloroform if lead is present, shaking of the chloroform solution of lead and bismuth dithizonates with a buffer solution of pH 3.4 results in the lead alone passing into the aqueous phase. The bismuth complex is soluble in a pentan-l-ol-ethyl acetate mixture, and this fact can be utilised for the determination in the presence of coloured ions, such as nickel, cobalt, chromium, and uranium. 

Group 13/III is the first group of the p block. Its members have an ns np1 electron configuration (Table 14.5), and so we expect a maximum oxidation number of +3. The oxidation numbers of B and A1 are +3 in almost all their compounds. However, the heavier elements in the group are more likely to keep their s-electrons (the inert-pair effect, Section 1.19) so the oxidation number +1 becomes increasingly important down the group, and thallium(I) compounds are as common as... 

In connection with a discussion of alloys of aluminum and zinc (Pauling, 1949) it was pointed out that an element present in very small quantity in solid solution in another element would have a tendency to assume the valence of the second element. The upper straight line in Fig. 2 is drawn between the value of the lattice constant for pure lead and that calculated for thallium with valence 2-14, equal to that of lead in the state of the pure element. It is seen that it passes through the experimental values of aQ for the alloys with 4-9 and 11-2 atomic percent thallium, thus supporting the suggestion that in these dilute alloys thallium has assumed the same valence as its solvent, lead. 

Let us consider first the low-energy fission of the lighter fissionable elements, in the neighborhood of Pb208. These elements (gold, thallium, lead, bismuth), when bombarded with particles such as 20-Mev deuterons, undergo symmetric fission, the distribution function of the products having a half width at half maximum of 8 to 15 mass-number units (20). 

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