Historia de la tabla periódica de los elementos químicos

Abstract

This review briefly indicates the most important contributions of some scientists to the periodic table, from the second half of the 18th century and the 19th century, a period in which most of the chemical elements were discovered. In the mid-nineteenth century the number of chemical elements was such that scientists found themselves in need of ordering the elements in some way in order to facilitate their study and better understand the properties, that means, there must be a natural law that relates the different items and sort them based on their properties. The first form of classification was to do so taking as criteria the atomic weights (currently atomic mass) of the elements, but this did not clearly reflect the differences and similarities among them. Mendeleev was the scientific who proposed the first formulation of the periodic law. He had the genius of leaving free gaps in his periodic table, which should correspond to elements that had not yet been discovered, for which he proposed their atomic weights and their properties, based on those of the neighboring elements. Henry Moseley, in 1912, shows that the periodic table must be sorted by atomic number. Mendeleev's law led to the current periodic table, the atomic number was used to arrange the elements, and it was structured in eighteen groups or columns and seven period sorrows. We conclude by indicating the contribution of some Spanish scientists, as well as some women scientists to the periodic table