Question

The atomic weight of iodine is less than the atomic weight of tellurium. However, Mendeleev listed iodine after tellurium in his original periodic table because he suspected the atomic weights for these elements were inaccurate. What was Mendeleev's reason for this suspicion?

Answer 1

Explanation :

As we know that Mendeleev arranged the elements in horizontal rows and vertical columns of a table in order of their increasing relative atomic weights.

He placed the elements with similar nature in the same group.

According to the question, the atomic weight of iodine is less than the atomic weight of tellurium. So according to this, iodine should be placed before tellurium in Mendeleev's tables. But Mendeleev placed iodine after tellurium in his original periodic table.

However, iodine has similar chemical properties to chlorine and bromine. So, in order to make iodine queue up with chlorine and bromine in his periodic table, Mendeleev exchanged the positions of iodine and tellurium.

As we know that the positions of iodine and tellurium were reversed in Mendeleev's table because iodine has one naturally occurring isotope that is iodine-127  and tellurium isotopes are tellurium-128 and tellurium-130.

Due to high relative abundance of tellurium isotopes gives tellurium the greater relative atomic mass.