CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

impure substance    →   nečista tvar

Impure substance is every substance that contains traces of other elements or compounds in itself.

impurity    →   nečistoća

Impurities are traces of other elements or compounds in an impure substance.

inorganic chemistry    →   anorganska kemija

Inorganic chemistry, the branch of chemistry concerned with compounds of elements other than carbon. Certain simple carbon compounds, such as CO, CO₂, CS₂, carbonates CO₃^2- and cyanides CN^-, are usually treated in inorganic chemistry.

Curie    →   Curie

Maria Sklodowska-Curie (1867-1934) Polish-born French chemist who went to Paris in 1891. She married the physicist Pierre Curie (1859-1906) in 1985 and soon began work on seeking radioactive elements other than uranium in pitchblende (to account for its unexpectedly high radioactivity). By 1898 she had discovered radium and polonium although it took her years to purify them. In 1903 the Curies shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Henri Becquerel, who had discovered radioactivity.

Dalton’s atomic theory    →   Daltonova atomska teorija

Dalton’s atomic theory is a theory of chemical combination, first stated by John Dalton in 1803. It involves the following postulates:

1. Elements consist of indivisible small particles (atoms).

2. All atoms of the same element are identical; different elements have different types of atom.

3. Atoms can neither be created nor destroyed.

4. ’Compound elements’ (i.e. compounds) are formed when atoms of different elements join in simple ratios to form ’compound atoms’ (i.e. molecules).

Dalton also proposed symbols for atoms of different elements (later replaced by the present notation using letters).

decay series    →   raspadni niz

Decay series is a series of decay in which radioactive element is decomposed in different elements until it produces one stable atom.

decomposition    →   raspadanje

Decomposition occurs when chemical compounds are broken up into simple molecules, and even as far as their original elements. These processes are normally irreversible. An example of decomposition is when ammonium nitrate is heated. This produces nitrous oxide and water which are unable to recombine.

isomer    →   izomer

Isomers are compounds that have identical molecular formulae but differ in the nature or sequence of bonding of their atoms (structural isomerism) or in the arrangement of their atoms in space (stereoisomerism).

isotope proportion    →   izotopni omjer

Isotope proportion is a number of atoms of each isotope in a sample of one element. It uses relative masses of isotopes to calculate a relative mass of one element.

lanthanides contraction    →   kontrakcija lantanoida

Lanthanides contraction is a reduction of metal and ion diameters from lanthanum to lutetium and it is caused by a core charge growth inside the same shell. Elements which in the periodic system of elements come after lanthanides have, because of lanthanides contraction, smaller diameter than they should have according to their position in the periodic system of elements.