Chemistry key terms

Able to be drawn out into a wire.

A lightweight aluminium alloy containing copper, manganese and magnesium.

A state reached in a closed system when the forward and reverse reactions occur at the same rate, so the amounts of reactants and products remain constant overall.

The atmosphere that surrounded the Earth early in its history, formed from gases released by volcanic activity.

How readily a substance starts to burn.

Worth doing when its benefits justify its financial costs.

A factor concerning money or resources, such as purchase price, running costs, affordability, employment or the cost of taking action.

A line where two faces of a solid meet; for a cube, every edge has the same length.

The formation of visible bubbles as a gas is produced in a liquid.

The liquid that remains above the settled sludge after sedimentation.

The ability of a material to allow electric charge to flow through it.

A material through which electrical charge can flow readily.

A material through which electric current does not flow easily.

A property of matter that may be positive, negative or neutral; opposite charges attract.

The movement of electrical charge through a material.

A conductor through which current enters or leaves an electrolyte.

The process in which an electric current passes through an electrolyte, causing ions to move to electrodes and react there.

The molten substance or mixture containing mobile ions that carries current between the electrodes.

The use of electrolysis to remove impurities from a metal.

A negatively charged subatomic particle found around the nucleus, with a relative electrical charge of −1.

The distribution of an atom's electrons between its occupied electron shells.

The arrangement of an atom’s or ion’s electrons in energy levels, often written as numbers such as 2,8,1.

The arrangement of electrons in the shells around an atom's nucleus.

The arrangement of electrons among the occupied energy levels of an atom or ion.

The use of pairs of electrons by more than one atom, producing or rearranging covalent bonds.

A region around the nucleus containing electrons with a particular range of energy; also called an energy level.

The reduction in the attraction between the nucleus and an outer or incoming electron caused by electrons in inner shells.

A chemical change in which one reacting particle loses one or more electrons and another gains them.

Using electricity to deposit a thin coating of metal on an object.

The attraction between particles with opposite electric charges.