predicting reactivty of an element in acid.

[jordehwa]

Hi i have a question about predicting the reactivity of an element with an acid.

 

So i know that copper will not react with HCL but zinc will.

I know this because i put the two elements in HCL and seen that copper wont react and zinc will. so my question is how can i predict if an element will react with an acid before i do an experiment.

 

And please don't say look it up on google, thanks.

---

Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

Maybe I didn't ask that right, so I will ask the same question a tiny bit different.

 

So for example if i wanted to know if copper would react with acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, and nitric acid, how could i figure this out on the periodic table?

[spookyjeff]

You can't really tell from the periodic table. You need to look at the activity series for metals. A metal will react with a Bronsted-Lowry Acid if the metal is more active than Hydrogen but won't proceed if the metal is lower. Your experiment was a fairly good one because it contained Zinc (A fairly reactive metal) and Copper (A relatively nonreactive one).

 

This is for metals. Nonmetals are a bit trickier and it all depends on the conditions and what acid is being used as usually something more complicated than a single replacement is taking place.

[jordehwa]

Thanks alot for answering me:-)

 

that helps me alot, i knew it was something like that, but i could not find it,

 

but i just typed in metal reactivity series and found it so thanks for the help.