31st Dec '25

Metals and Metallic Bonding

Metals have the following physical properties:

high - allows the movment of heat and electricity
high - can be hammered into different shapes
reasonably high - is difficult to scratch
reasonably high melting/boiling points

This is due to a metals structure - metallic bonding.

Metals are made up of a close-packed arrangement of particles, like an ionic crystal. The difference is that the outer most electrons of the metal atoms are free to move from one atom to another.

Electrical is the general flow of these electrons in a given direction. The movement of free electrons, also explains the speed at which heat conducts in a metal, as well as the fact that the particles are closely packed.

The charged electrons act as a glue between the charge ions. This results in a high melting and boiling points and hardness.

Given enough force however and the positive ions can be moved realtive to one another and so the metal can be hammered into shape (they are malleable).

Metals can be mixed together, with each positive ion giving some electrons to the 'glue'. This is called alloying and can dramatically change the properties of metals. Different steels have different metals plus carbon mixed the basic iron structure.