At room temperature, this element is a dense, red and volatile liquid. Its reactivity is intermediate between iodine and chlorine. It poses a danger to the tissues of human beings in its liquid state, while its vapors cause throat and eye irritation.
Bromine was discovered in 1826 but it was in 1860 that it began to be produced in large industrial quantities.
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Bromine Uses
- In medicine, bromine compounds are used as anticonvulsants for animals and humans. Despite this, its use can cause neurological dysfunctions. Bromine in its brominated forms is used as a component of analgesics, sedatives and antiallergics. Another function is in the treatment of cocaine drug addiction and to fight pneumonia, bromine compounds are used as the main active ingredient in medicines.
- In soft drink companies, bromine is used to produce oil which is then used for the emulsion of these drinks.
- Bromine is used to treat swimming pool water, to purify industrial water, in thermal baths and for the production of insecticides and disinfectants.
- Ethylene bromine is used as an additive in gasoline because it prevents engine breakdown. When combined with lead, which is also part of gasoline, it produces a lot of pollution, but currently its use has been minimized.
Biological role of bromine
Bromine is found in trace amounts in the body of human beings. It is considered a fundamental chemical element, although its functions are not exactly known. Some of its compounds have been used as sedatives and in the treatment of epilepsy.
Bromine Precautions
In brominated substances, there is great toxicity caused by a particular atom, complexes or ions such as cyanide ion or fluoroacetate ion, and other toxicity caused by its reactivity.
Fluorine and its compounds are toxic, as is arsenic. Whereas with bromine, its toxicity is more like that of chlorine and is caused by its reactivity, to a lesser degree than that of chlorine. Its negative bromide ions as well as chloride have low toxicity. Chloride is found in blood and salt, but it is not as toxic. Bromide is more toxic than chloride, but also does not present a high level of risk.
On the other hand, elemental bromine is extremely toxic and only small traces that penetrate by inhalation or through the skin can cause immediate health problems and, taken in high doses, death. It produces great irritation of the throat and eyes and generates painful burns on contact with the skin.
Electron configuration of bromine
The Electron configuration of the chemical elements represents the electrons and their location in the energy sublevels, shell or last orbit. Bromine’s atomic number is 35, so its full electron configuration is 1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 4s² 3d¹⁰ 4p⁵.
To obtain the configuration, it is read with a diagonal from top to bottom. This technique is called the building principle or the rain method. It starts with the lower energy sub-levels until adding all the quantities of electrons that the element has.
In other words, to obtain the Electron configuration of this element, we use the Moeller diagram and its atomic number, which is 35 in this case.
Bromine can shorten the Electron configuration by using noble gases like neon, argon, krypton and radon. For this, the following steps are followed:
- The noble gas that is before the element is sought.
- A change is made to the energy sublevels in which the exponents are the total amount of the atomic number that belongs to the noble gas by the element symbol.
The noble gas that precedes bromine is argon. The atomic number of this element is 18. Hence, the abbreviated electron configuration or electron configuration of bromine nucleus is [Ar] 3d¹⁰ 4s² 4p⁵. In this way, the Electron configuration of bromine expresses that it has 7 valence electrons with 4 energy levels.
