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Chalcogen Essay

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Also known as the oxygen family, chalcogens are sulfur (S), selenium (Se), tellurium(Te), and polonium (Po). Oxygen (O) is also in group 16, where chalcogens are located on the periodic table. While it is defined as a chalcogen, oxygen and oxides are often separated from chalcogens because its chemical behavior is much different than that of the other elements in the group. The other elements in the group show similar patterns in their electron configurations resulting in similar chemical behavior. The name chalcogen means "ore former," derived from the Greek words chalcos: ore and -gen: formation. An interesting fact is that oxygen is the most abundant element on Earth, second most in the Atmosphere, and third in the whole universe. It is …show more content…

Selenium itself is a nontoxic element, but when made into a compound, it can become very toxic. For example, Hydrogen selenide is intolerable to humans. Tellurium’s name is derived from the latin word for earth, “tellus”. It is very brittle and has a silvery-white appearance. When a human is exposed to even the smallest amount of Tellurium, they develop “Tellurium breath”, which smells like garlic. It was discovered by Franz Joseph Mδller von Reichenstein, who was a the chief inspector of mines in Transylvania, but was name by M. Klaproth. Polonium, which is very poisonous and radioactive, was discovered by Marie Curie. She named it after her native country, Poland. It is very rare and is made only in small quantities through a nuclear reaction of bismuth. An interesting fact about polonium is that there actually is no real world use for it, but it can be used as a poison.
This should be a paragraph about history which this thesis statement is NOT representative of. Once again this paragraph is a list of facts not a summary of trends with specific examples. You need to cut back.
The Chalcogens group of elements is comprised of oxygen, sulfur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium. Joseph Priestly discovered the element Oxygen in 1776. Priestly loved to experiment and did many experiments of carbon dioxide, even with his meager money intake. These experiments led him eventually to experimenting on the isolation of oxygen. Although Priestly was the

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