Dmitri Mendeleev

Russian chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) is given the

most credit for arranging the elements in the periodic table.
Lothar Meyer and Mendeleev both developed their versions of
the periodic table almost simultaneously in the late 1860’s but
even though the table that Meyer produced was similar to
Mendeleev’s, the table failed to classify the elements correctly.
Mendeleev collected information about each of the 63 known
elements at the time and constructed one data card for each
element. On which he noted the elements’ compounds, atomic
mass and other properties.

He noticed that there were groups of different elements that

had similar chemical properties, and by using this piece of
information he was able to organise the elements into a
periodic table according to an increasing order of their relative
atomic masses. While developing his periodic table Mendeleev
left gaps for elements which had not been discovered yet and
he separately listed some ‘odd’ elements (e.g. cobalt and
nickel) whose properties didn’t exactly fit into the group in
which they were located.
 Mendeleev then proposed a periodic law which stated that:
“The properties of the elements are periodic functions of their
relative atomic masses”. This means that if the elements are
arranged in order of increasing atomic mass then at regular
intervals similar physical and chemical properties will occur.
The periodic table that was produced by Mendeleev was
arranged in a similar way to the periodic table which we use
today. It showed vertical columns (called groups) which
contained elements with similar physical and chemical
properties. Elements in horizontal rows (called periods) were
arranged in order of increasing atomic masses.

Table 7.4 - Comparison of predicted and actual

properties of gallium
Properties of
Actual properties of
gallium predicted
Property gallium, discovered
by Mendeleev in
in 1875
1871
relative atomic
68 69.9
mass
density (g cmˉ³) 5.9 5.94
melting point low 30°C
solubility in acids
dissolves slowly dissolves slowly
and bases

Dmitri Mendeleev said that if the atomic weight of an element

caused it to be placed in the wrong group then the atomic
weight must be wrong. Using this statement he corrected the
atomic masses of Beryllium, Indium and Uranium. He had so
confident in his periodic table that he used it to predict the
physical properties of three elements (scandium, gallium and
germanium) which were unknown at the time. Mendeleev’s
table was accepted after these unknown elements were found
and his predictions of them were proved right. In 1882 both
Meyer and Mendeleev were awarded the Davy Medal by the
Royal Society of London. When Mendeleev died in 1907 the
element number 101, radioactive mendelevium was named
after him.
 Bibliography:
- www.wikipedia.org
- Jacaranda plus Chemistry 1 - VCE Chemistry Units 1 & 2