Reports

Science Report #2 (Activity Series)

By Kelly Moran

For today's science report I am going to talk about the Activity Series. The activity series is a series of reactive metals in order of high reactivity to low reactivity. It is used to determine the product of displacement reactions. This is when a single element replaces another element when it's higher in the activity series. When a metal is an element and is combined with another metal that is an ion, it is easy for the elemental metal to become a ionic metal and for ionic metal to transfer into an elemental metal. They will displace each other. Only a metal higher in the reactivity series will displace another. A metal can displace metal ions listed below in the activity series. For example copper is less reactive then zinc therefore zinc is able to replace copper ions from solution. Silver cannot displace copper ions from solution because it is lower on the activity series. It is valuable to differentiate the displacement of hydrogen from an acid and hydrogen from water. Sodium is highly reactive and is able to displace hydrogen from water. Less reactive metals like zinc and iron don't displace hydrogen from water but do readily react with acids. The boundary of metals that react with waters and the others that don't is harder to spot. For example Calcium is quite reactive with water but magnesium doesn't react with cold water but can still displace hydrogen from steam. The reactivity of metals has to do with their electron configurations as atoms and ions. Since they are all metals, they will form positive ions when they react. Metals with a greater number of electrons tend to be more reactive to substances because their outermost electrons exist further than the positive nucleus therefore they are held less strongly together. 

Bibliography: http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/jarman/richenda/1551_hons_materials/Activity%20series.htm

Picture of Activity Series Table!