Hi all!
I am not an inorganic chemist so this might be a very simple question for inorganic chemists. I wanted to qualitatively compare electrical conductivity of transition metal ions in water or solutions in general. Is there a trend and that I can find? The most straightforward thing I came up with is that the more valence e-s are available the more it would be more electrically conductive? So I am guessing that the conductivity increases as you go from the left to right on the periodic table.
Is there an important concept or parameters that I should know about understanding this phenomenon? Is there a simple equation that summarizes the trend?
Thanks!
The conductivity of metal in solution depends on how much the metal is soluble in solution. The more solubility the metal is the more it conduct electricity, due to the presence of mobile electrons. Also, it metals tend to be more soluble at high temperature than at low temperature.
There may be other species in the solution that are responsible for the measured conductivity. You should familiarize yourself with the concept of Ion transport number, see link. If your metal ion has more charge the there will also be more anions in the solution that may account for the higher conductivity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_transport_number
Conductivity in this case is all due to ions, not electrons.
In addition to the metal ion charge in the solution (I assume this is a water solution) conductivity will also depend on the mobility of the ion in the solution and concentration (mobility depends on the size of the ion and hydration state in the solution). Anions (if from a soluble salt or OH- if a base) will also have a contribution in conductivity, but travel in opposite direction. Text books on electrochemistry will have more information, or a physical chemistry text book will have a section on this too.
For a qualitative comparison it may be possible to use same anion for metals you choose (Chloride?) at the same molar concentration and then adjust for the valance of the metal if you vary it.
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