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- Name : Barium
- Symbol : Ba
- Atomic # : 56
- Atom weight: 137.33
- Melting P. : 725
- Boiling P. : 1640
- Oxidation : +2
- Pronounced : BAR-i-em
- From : Greek barys, "heavy"
- Identified : Sir Humphry Davy in 1808
- Appearance : Soft, slightly malleable, silver-white metal
- Note : Burns easily in air
-
- [Properties]
-
- Barium belongs to the set of Group-IIA metals known as the alkaline-
- earth metals. This means they have a number of significant properties in
- common. They are all very metallic in nature, for example. They are
- silvery white, fairly hard, and are good conductors of electricity. They
- all have much higher melting temperatures than their alkali-metal
- counterparts in Group-IA.
- They are traditionally called alkaline earths because, to the eyes of
- early chemists, they appeared to share the properties of both alkalis
- and earths. They missed the metallic properties because none of this
- group occurs in an elemental form in nature.
- Barium metal burns easily in air to produce barium oxide, and it reacts
- with water to yield barium hydroxide and hydrogen.
-