| Discovery date | 1808 |
| Discovered by | Humphry Davy |
| Origin of the name | The name is derived from the Latin 'calx' meaning lime. |
| Allotropes |
|
Ca
Calcium
20
40.078
| Group | 2 | Melting point | 842°C, 1548°F, 1115 K |
| Period | 4 | Boiling point | 1484°C, 2703°F, 1757 K |
| Block | s | Density (g cm−3) | 1.54 |
| Atomic number | 20 | Relative atomic mass | 40.078 |
| State at 20°C | Solid | Key isotopes | 40Ca |
| Electron configuration | [Ar] 4s2 | CAS number | 7440-70-2 |
| ChemSpider ID | 4573905 | ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database | |
Image explanation
The spiral shell and bones reflect the essential presence of calcium in all living things.
Appearance
Calcium is a silvery-white, soft metal that tarnishes rapidly in air and reacts with water.
Uses
Calcium metal is used as a reducing agent in preparing other metals such as thorium and uranium. It is also used as an alloying agent for aluminium, beryllium, copper, lead and magnesium alloys.
Calcium compounds are widely used. There are vast deposits of limestone (calcium carbonate) used directly as a building stone and indirectly for cement. When limestone is heated in kilns it gives off carbon dioxide gas leaving behind quicklime (calcium oxide). This reacts vigorously with water to give slaked lime (calcium hydroxide). Slaked lime is used to make cement, as a soil conditioner and in water treatment to reduce acidity, and in the chemicals industry. It is also used in steel making to remove impurities from the molten iron ore. When mixed with sand, slaked lime takes up carbon dioxide from the air and hardens as lime plaster.
Gypsum (calcium sulfate) is used by builders as a plaster and by nurses for setting bones, as ‘plaster of Paris’.
Biological role
Calcium is essential to all living things, particularly for the growth of healthy teeth and bones. Calcium phosphate is the main component of bone. The average human contains about 1 kilogram of calcium.
Children and pregnant women are encouraged to eat foods rich in calcium, such as milk and dairy products, leafy green vegetables, fish and nuts and seeds.
Natural abundance
Calcium is the fifth most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust (4.1%). It is not found uncombined in nature, but occurs abundantly as limestone (calcium carbonate), gypsum (calcium sulfate), fluorite (calcium fluoride) and apatite (calcium chloro- or fluoro-phosphate).
Hard water contains dissolved calcium bicarbonate. When this filters through the ground and reaches a cave, it precipitates out to form stalactites and stalagmites.
Calcium metal is prepared commercially by heating lime with aluminium in a vacuum.
Lime (calcium oxide, CaO) was the useful material obtained by heating limestone and used for centuries to make plaster and mortar. Antoine Lavoisier classified it as an ‘earth’ because it seemed impossible to reduce it further, but he suspected it was the oxide of an unknown element. In 1808, Humphry Davy tried to reduce moist lime by electrolysis, just as he had done with sodium and potassium, but he was not successful. So he tried a mixture of lime and mercury oxide and while this produced an amalgam of calcium and mercury, it was not enough to confirm that he’d obtained a new element. (Jöns Jacob Berzelius had conducted a similar experiment and also obtained the amalgam.) Davy tried using more lime in the mixture and produced more of the amalgam from which he distilled off the mercury leaving just calcium.
| Atomic radius, non-bonded (Å) | 2.31 | Covalent radius (Å) | 1.74 |
| Electron affinity (kJ mol−1) | 2.369 |
Electronegativity (Pauling scale) |
1.00 |
|
Ionisation energies (kJ mol−1) |
1st
589.83
2nd
1145.447
3rd
4912.368
4th
6490.57
5th
8153
6th
10495.68
7th
12272.9
8th
14206.5
|
||
| Common oxidation states | 2 | ||||
| Isotopes | Isotope | Atomic mass | Natural abundance (%) | Half life | Mode of decay |
| 40Ca | 39.963 | 96.941 | 5.92 x 1021 y | EC-EC | |
| 42Ca | 41.959 | 0.647 | - | - | |
| 43Ca | 42.959 | 0.135 | - | - | |
| 44Ca | 43.955 | 2.086 | - | - | |
| 46Ca | 45.954 | 0.004 | > 0.4 x 1016 y | β-β- | |
| 48Ca | 47.953 | 0.187 | 4.4 x 1019 y | β-β- | |
| > 7.1 x 1019 y | β- | ||||
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Specific heat capacity (J kg−1 K−1) |
647 | Young's modulus (GPa) | Unknown | |||||||||||
| Shear modulus (GPa) | Unknown | Bulk modulus (GPa) | 17.2 | |||||||||||
| Vapour pressure | ||||||||||||||
| Temperature (K) |
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| Pressure (Pa) |
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| Listen to Calcium Podcast |
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Transcript :
Chemistry in its element: calcium(Promo) You're listening to Chemistry in its element brought to you by Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry. (End promo) Chris Smith Hello, welcome to this week's Chemistry in its Element, I'm Chris Smith. This week it's the turn of the element that gives us cement, plaster of Paris, our own bones, hard teeth and hard water. Karen Faulds Milk, cheese, yogurt, spinach, almonds. What element do they all have in common? It's calcium of course! But whilst most off us immediately think of food when someone mentions calcium (and I personally hold the old milk TV adverts accountable for this), it actually has a far bigger role in our lives than that. Calcium is all around us. The average human contains approximately 1kg of calcium, of which 99% is stored in our bones. It is the 5th most abundant element in the earth's crust, occurring widely as calcium carbonate which is more commonly known as limestone. It is also the fifth most abundant dissolved ion in seawater. Calcium was named after the Latin term calx meaning lime, and is a reactive silvery metallic element found in Group 2 of the periodic table. It was first isolated in 1808 in England when Sir Humphry Davy electrolyzed a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide. Today we obtain calcium through the electrolysis of a fused salt such as calcium chloride. Once exposed to air, elemental calcium rapidly forms a grey-white oxide and nitride coating. Unlike magnesium, calcium is quite difficult to ignite, but once lit, it burns with a brilliant high-intensity red flame. The compounds of calcium are however much more useful than the element itself. Literature dating back to 975 AD shows that plaster of Paris (which is calcium sulphate) was used even then for setting broken bones. Calcium oxide (also known as lime or quicklime) is a major component of mortar and cement. The production of cement using calcium oxide has long been known; it was used by the Romans and also the Egyptians who built the Great Pyramid of Giza and Tutankhamen's tomb. Calcium fluoride is also well known for being insoluble and transparent over a wide range of wavelengths, making it useful for making cells and windows for infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers. Our drinking water also contains calcium ions - more so in so called hard water areas. Hard water is the term used for water with a high proportion of calcium and magnesium (2 plus) ions. The calcium usually enters the water as it flows past either calcium carbonate, from limestone and chalk, or calcium sulfate, from other mineral deposits. Whilst some people do not like the taste, hard water is generally not harmful to your health. Although it does make your kettle furry! Interestingly, the taste of beer (something dear to my heart) seems related to the calcium concentration of the water used, and it is claimed that good beer should have a calcium concentration that is higher than that of hard tap water. Calcium is what is known as an essential element, meaning that it is an element which is absolutely necessary for life processes. Which is what the old milk TV adverts were trying to tell us after all. Calcium is used to produce the minerals contained in bones, shells and teeth through a process called biomineralisation. Calcium phosphate (also known as hydroxyapatite) is the mineral component of bones and teeth and is a particularly good example of how organisms fabricate 'living' composite materials. Indeed, the different properties (such as stiffness) of bone are produced by varying the amount of organic component, mostly a fibrous protein called collagen, with which hydroxyapatite is associated. The bone in our body functions not only as a structural support, but also as the central Ca store. Thus, during pregnancy, bones tend to be raided for their Ca in a process called demineralisation. Bone does not last forever; a serious medical problem is osteoporosis which is the decalcification of bone. This loss of bone mass which occurs with increasing age makes bones more susceptible to breaking under stress and it occurs mainly in older people, especially women. Calcium ions also play a crucial role in higher organisms as an intracellular messenger. Fluxes of Ca2+ trigger enzyme action in cells in response to receiving a hormonal or electrical signal from elsewhere in the organism. Calcium is also very important in helping blood to clot. When bleeding from a wound suddenly occurs, platelets gather at the wound and attempt to block the blood flow. Calcium, vitamin K, and a protein called fibrinogen help the platelets to form a clot. If your blood is lacking calcium or one of these other nutrients, it will take longer than normal for your blood to clot. The ability to detect extremely small amounts of an element can be a very useful adaptation for an animal if that element is important to it. For example, hermit crabs, which inhabit second hand shells and change to newer, bigger shells as they grow, have the ability to recognise shells suitable for occupation not only by feeling for them, but apparently also by measuring the minute amount of calcium carbonate that is dissolved in the water around a shell. They can readily distinguish natural shells containing calcium carbonate from calcium-bearing replicas made from calcium sulphate. The concentration of calcium detected by the hermit crab is in the order of 4ppm or less, which is amazingly low. So from strong teeth and bones, through to good tasting beer and ensuring hermit crabs find their perfect home -you can see that calcium really is an essential element. Chris Smith Well, I'm very at home with my hard water, and the local beer tastes quite good too, although I do get through quite a few kettles - indeed Russell Hobbs probably owe their buoyant share price just down to me. Well, maybe. That was Strathclyde University's Karen Faulds with the story of Calcium. Next week, if you were an element which one would you be? Pat Bailey If I had to choose a person to represent gold, then I guess it might be an ambitious young stockbroker, a bit flashy, and not great at forming relationships. For helium - an airy-fairy blonde with a bit of a squeaky voice, but with aspirations to join the nobility. And for boron? Well at first glance a boring, middle-aged accountant, maybe wearing brown corduroys and a tweed jacket . but with an unexpected side-to him in his spare time - skydiving, and a member of a highly dubious society that indulges in swapping partners. Chris Smith And you can get the inside story on Boron's swinging antics with Pat Bailey in next week's Chemistry in its Element. I'm Chris Smith, thank you for listening and goodbye. (Promo) Chemistry in its element is brought to you by the Royal Society of Chemistry and produced by thenakedscientists.com. There's more information and other episodes of Chemistry in its element on our website at chemistryworld.org/elements. (End promo)
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Visual Elements images and videos
© Murray Robertson 1998-2017.
W. M. Haynes, ed., CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL, 95th Edition, Internet Version 2015, accessed December 2014.
Tables of Physical & Chemical Constants, Kaye & Laby Online, 16th edition, 1995. Version 1.0 (2005), accessed December 2014.
J. S. Coursey, D. J. Schwab, J. J. Tsai, and R. A. Dragoset, Atomic Weights and Isotopic Compositions (version 4.1), 2015, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, accessed November 2016.
T. L. Cottrell, The Strengths of Chemical Bonds, Butterworth, London, 1954.
John Emsley, Nature’s Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements, Oxford University Press, New York, 2nd Edition, 2011.
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education, It’s Elemental - The Periodic Table of Elements, accessed December 2014.
Periodic Table of Videos, accessed December 2014.
Derived in part from material provided by the British Geological Survey © NERC.
Elements 1-112, 114, 116 and 117 © John Emsley 2012. Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 © Royal Society of Chemistry 2017.
Produced by The Naked Scientists.
Created by video journalist Brady Haran working with chemists at The University of Nottingham.
© Murray Robertson 1998-2017.
Data
W. M. Haynes, ed., CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL, 95th Edition, Internet Version 2015, accessed December 2014.
Tables of Physical & Chemical Constants, Kaye & Laby Online, 16th edition, 1995. Version 1.0 (2005), accessed December 2014.
J. S. Coursey, D. J. Schwab, J. J. Tsai, and R. A. Dragoset, Atomic Weights and Isotopic Compositions (version 4.1), 2015, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, accessed November 2016.
T. L. Cottrell, The Strengths of Chemical Bonds, Butterworth, London, 1954.
Uses and properties
John Emsley, Nature’s Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements, Oxford University Press, New York, 2nd Edition, 2011.
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education, It’s Elemental - The Periodic Table of Elements, accessed December 2014.
Periodic Table of Videos, accessed December 2014.
Supply risk data
Derived in part from material provided by the British Geological Survey © NERC.
History text
Elements 1-112, 114, 116 and 117 © John Emsley 2012. Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 © Royal Society of Chemistry 2017.
Podcasts
Produced by The Naked Scientists.
Periodic Table of Videos
Created by video journalist Brady Haran working with chemists at The University of Nottingham.
