What is lead?
A: Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82.
What is its melting point?
A: 600.61 K (327.46 °C, 621.43 °F)
What is its boiling point?
A: 2022 K (1749 °C, 3180 °F)
It is a heavy metal that is denser than what?
A: Most common materials.
Lead is soft and what?
A: Malleable.
Freshly cut, lead is silvery with a hint of what?
A: Blue.
It tarnishes to a dull gray
color when exposed to what?
A: Air.
Lead has the highest “what” of any stable element?
A: Atomic number.
Three of its isotopes are endpoints of what?
A: Major nuclear decay chains of heavier elements.
Why were prehistoric people in the Near East aware of
lead?
A: Because lead is easily extracted from its ores.
Galena is a principal ore of lead which often bears
what?
A: Silver.
Where did an interest in silver help initiate
widespread extraction and use of lead?
A: In ancient Rome.
Lead production declined after the fall of Rome and did
not reach comparable levels until when?
A: Until the Industrial Revolution.
Lead played a crucial role in the development of what?
A: The printing press, as movable type could be relatively easily cast from
lead alloys.
In 2014, the annual global production of lead was how
much?
A: About ten million tons, over half of which was from recycling.
When did lead's toxicity become widely recognized?
A: In the late 19th century.
A number of well-educated ancient Greek and Roman
writers were aware of this fact and even knew some of what?
A: Symptoms of lead poisoning.
Lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates where?
A: In soft tissues and bones.
What does it damage?
A: The nervous system and interferes with the function of biological
enzymes, causing neurological disorders ranging from behavioral problems to
brain damage, and also affects general
health, cardiovascular, and renal
systems.
How many electrons does a lead atom have?
A: A lead atom has 82 electrons.
Leads density is the origin of what idiom?
A: “To go over like a lead balloon”
Lead is a very soft metal with a Mohs hardness of 1.5;
it can be scratched with a what?
A: A fingernail.
Lead metal resists sulfuric and phosphoric acid but not
what?
A: Hydrochloric or nitric acid.
Organic acids, such as acetic acid, dissolve lead in
the presence of what?
A: Oxygen.
Concentrated alkalis will dissolve lead and form what?
A: Plumbites.