The trivial name poor metals is sometimes applied to the metallic elements in the p-block of the periodic table. Their melting and boiling points are generally lower than that of the transition metals and their electronegativity higher, and they are also softer. They are distinguished from the metalloids by their significantly higher boiling points and conductivity in the same period.
"Poor metals" is not a rigorous IUPAC-approved nomenclature, but the grouping is generally taken to include aluminium, gallium, indium, tin, thallium, lead, bismuth and polonium. Occasionally germanium and antimony are also included, although these are usually considered to be metalloids or "semi-metals". Elements 113, 114, 115, and 116, which are currently allocated the names ununtrium, flerovium, ununpentium, and livermorium, would likely exhibit properties characteristic of poor metals; sufficient quantities of them have not yet been synthesized to examine their chemical properties.
Read more about this topic: Post-transition Metals
Famous quotes containing the words poor and/or metals:
“There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayest not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one’s soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)