Iron group

In chemistry and physics, the iron group refers to elements that are in some way related to iron; mostly in period (row) 4 of the periodic table. The term has different meanings in different contexts. In chemistry, the term is largely obsolete, but it often means iron, cobalt, and nickel, also called the iron triad; or, sometimes, other elements that resemble iron in some chemical aspects. In astrophysics and nuclear physics, the term is still quite common, and it typically means those three plus chromium and manganese—five elements that are exceptionally abundant, both on Earth and elsewhere in the universe, compared to their neighbors in the periodic table. Titanium and vanadium are also produced in Type 1a supernovae. In chemistry, "iron group" used to refer to iron and the next two elements in the periodic table, namely cobalt and nickel. These three comprised the "iron triad". They are the top elements of groups 8, 9, and 10 of the periodic table; or the top row of "group VIII" in the old (pre-1990) IUPAC system, or of "group VIIIB" in the CAS system. These three metals (and the three of the platinum group, immediately below them) were set aside from the other elements because they have obvious similarities in their chemistry, but are not obviously related to any of the other groups. The iron group and its alloys exhibit ferromagnetism. The similarities in chemistry were noted as one of Döbereiner's triads and by Adolph Strecker in 1859. Indeed, Newlands' "octaves" (1865) were harshly criticized for separating iron from cobalt and nickel. Mendeleev stressed that groups of "chemically analogous elements" could have similar atomic weights as well as atomic weights which increase by equal increments, both in his original 1869 paper and his 1889 Faraday Lecture. In the traditional methods of qualitative inorganic analysis, the iron group consists of those cations which have soluble chlorides; and are not precipitated as sulfides by hydrogen sulfide in acidic conditions; are precipitated as hydroxides at around pH 10 (or less) in the presence of ammonia.