Why mercury is considered a metal rather than being liquid in normal room temperature.

Answer:-

Key Points

• Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at standard conditions for temperature and pressure.
• Mercury is a poor conductor of heat, but a fair conductor of electricity.
• Mercury has a unique electron configuration which strongly resists removal of an electron, making it behave similarly to noble gas elements. As a result, mercury forms weak bonds and is a liquid at room temperature.
• Mercury dissolves to form amalgams with gold, zinc, and many other metals.

Basically, it’s because mercury is bad at sharing—electrons, that is.Most metal atoms readily share valence electrons with other atoms. The electrons in a mercury atom are bound more tightly than usual to the nucleus. In fact, the s electrons are moving so fast and close to the nucleus that they exhibit relativistic effects, behaving as if they were more massive than slower-moving electrons. It takes very little heat to overcome the weak binding between mercury atoms. Because of the behavior of the valence electrons , mercury has a low melting point, is a poor electrical and thermal conductor, and doesn’t form diatomic mercury molecules in the gas phase.

Team :- CBSECONCEPT