Vincent asked in Science & MathematicsChemistry · 5 months ago

# Is there a correlation between the melting point and heat of sublimation of a metal?

I plotted the heat of sublimation vs the melting point of multiple metals. Is there a correlation between the two?

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• Dr W
Lv 7
5 months ago

what metals? the metal elements on a ptable? grades of stainless steel?

here's a handful of the metal elements and their dHsub and mp data

.. .. .... .. . dHsub.. .. .. .. . mp

.. .. ... .. .. .kJ/mol.. .. ... ... .K

Na..... ..... ...108.. ... ... .. 371

K.. ... ... ... .. .89.. .. ... ... 336

Rb.. ... ... ... ..82.. ... .. .. .312

Cs.. ... ... .. ...78.. ... .. ... 302

Mg.. ... ... .. 150.. ... ... ... 923

Ca.. ... .. ... .192.. ... .. .. 1115

Sr.. ... ... .. ..164.. ... .. . .1050

Ba.. ... ... .. .176.. ... ... .. 1000

when I plot mp vs dHsub, I get the attached plot. Now that shows a strong correlation (the higher the dHsub, the higher the mp.. as it should since subliming requires overcoming interparticle forces of attraction in the solid + liquid phases and melting requires overcoming just the forces of attraction in the solid phase. And you might want to consider heat associated with raising the temp from melting to boiling.)

anyway.. I really don't like drawing conclusions when the data has 2 extreme sets of data. 1 group of data points centered around dHsub = 100 and 1 group centered around dHsub = 175. So my suggestion would be you find more metals with dHsub in the 100 to 150 range and replot that plot

Then YOU draw a conclusion and try to explain it!