• Question: can there be a compound with all the elements in the periodic table

    Asked by spursboy118 to Faye, Martin, Mus, Pete on 3 May 2012.
    • Photo: Pete Etchells

      Pete Etchells answered on 3 May 2012:


      Hi spursboy118 – this isn’t my area of expertise, but I don’t think that there is a compound that can be made up of all the elements. In particular, all of the Nobel gases (argon, krypton, neon, helium, xenon and radon) are extremely unreactive, which means it’s very hard to get them to combinewith anything. This is mainly due to the fact that their outer ring of electrons is full, so they don’t gain any more stability by sharing electrons with other elements. You can form compounds with them, but it usually has to be under very high temperatures and pressures. However, I think to combine all of the noble gases together into one compound would be pretty much impossible.

Comments