Fluorine and Calcium - Comparison - Properties

This article contains comparison of key thermal and atomic properties of fluorine and calcium, two comparable chemical elements from the periodic table. It also contains basic descriptions and applications of both elements. Fluorine vs Calcium.

fluorine and calcium - comparison

Compare fluorine with another element

Compare calcium with another element

Fluorine and Calcium – About Elements

Fluorine

Fluorine is the lightest halogen and exists as a highly toxic pale yellow diatomic gas at standard conditions. As the most electronegative element, it is extremely reactive: almost all other elements, including some noble gases, form compounds with fluorine.

Calcium

Calcium is an alkaline earth metal, it is a reactive pale yellow metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to its heavier homologues strontium and barium. It is the fifth most abundant element in Earth’s crust and the third most abundant metal, after iron and aluminium.

Fluorine in Periodic Table

Calcium in Periodic Table

Source: www.luciteria.com

Fluorine and Calcium – Applications

Fluorine

Owing to the expense of refining pure fluorine, most commercial applications use fluorine compounds, with about half of mined fluorite used in steelmaking. The rest of the fluorite is converted into corrosive hydrogen fluoride en route to various organic fluorides, or into cryolite, which plays a key role in aluminium refining. Most commercial uranium enrichment processes (gaseous diffusion and the gas centrifuge method) require the uranium to be in a gaseous form, therefore the uranium oxide concentrate must be first converted to uranium hexafluoride, which is a gas at relatively low temperatures. Molecules containing a carbon–fluorine bond often have very high chemical and thermal stability; their major uses are as refrigerants, electrical insulation and cookware, the last as PTFE (Teflon).

Calcium

The largest use of metallic calcium is in steelmaking, due to its strong chemical affinity for oxygen and sulfur. Its oxides and sulfides, once formed, give liquid lime aluminate and sulfide inclusions in steel which float out. Calcium compounds are used as manufacture of insecticides, paints, blackboard chalk, textile and fireworks.

Fluorine and Calcium – Comparison in Table

Element	Fluorine	Calcium
Density	0.0017 g/cm3	1.55 g/cm3
Ultimate Tensile Strength	N/A	110 MPa
Yield Strength	N/A	N/A
Young’s Modulus of Elasticity	N/A	20 GPa
Mohs Scale	N/A	1.5
Brinell Hardness	N/A	170 – 400 MPa
Vickers Hardness	N/A	N/A
Melting Point	-219.8 °C	842 °C
Boiling Point	-188.1 °C	1484 °C
Thermal Conductivity	0.0279 W/mK	200 W/mK
Thermal Expansion Coefficient	N/A	22.3 µm/mK
Specific Heat	0.82 J/g K	0.63 J/g K
Heat of Fusion	0.2552 kJ/mol	8.54 kJ/mol
Heat of Vaporization	3.2698 kJ/mol	153.3 kJ/mol