. General trend in properties: . . Metallic behaviour: All the transition elements are metals.
Similar to all metals the transition metals are good conductors of heat and electricity. Unlike the metals of Group- and group- , all the transition metals except group elements are hard. Of all the known elements, silver has the highest electrical conductivity at room temperature. XII U4-D-Block-Jerald XII U4-D-Block-Jerald - - - - Most of the transition elements are hexagonal close packed, cubic close packed or body centrered cubic which are the characteristics of true metals.
Sc HCP Ti HCP V BCC Cr BCC Mn BCC Fe BCC Co HCP Ni FCC Cu FCC Zn HCP Y HCP Zr HCP Nb BCC Mo BCC Tc HCP Ru HCP Rh FCC Pd FCC Ag FCC Cd HCP * La DHCP Hf HCP Ta BCC/ TETR W BCC Re HCP Os HCP Ir FCC Pt FCC Au FCC Hg RHO ** Ac FCC Rf [HCP] Db [BCC] Sg [BCC] Bh [HCP] Hs [HCP] Mt [FCC] Ds [BCC] Rg [BCC] Cn [BCC] Figure . lattice structures of 3d, 4d and 5d transition metals As we move from left to right along the transition metal series, melting point first increases as the number of unpaired d electrons available for metallic bonding increases, reach a maximum value and then decreases, as the d electrons pair up and become less available for bonding. For example, in the first series the melting point increases from Scandium (m.pt 1814K) to a maximum of K for vanadium, which is close to 2180K for chromium. However, manganese in 3d series and Tc in 4d series have low melting point.
The maximum melting point at about the middle of transition metal series indicates that d configuration is favorable for strong interatomic attraction. The following figure shows the trends in melting points of