Matter has what type of properties

Gas molecules fill up any container with no consideration to size or shape. Gas particles have a great deal of space between them and have high kinetic energy. If unconfined, the particles of a gas will spread out indefinitely; if confined, the gas will completely fill its container. When a gas is put under pressure by reducing the volume of the container or pumping the gas into a container, the space between particles is reduced and the pressure exerted by their collisions increases.

If the volume of the container is held constant, but the temperature of the gas increases, then the pressure will also increase. Conversely, if the pressure is decreased, the temperature will also decrease you have probably observed this as you spray a can of compressed air and it gets cold.

If compressed enough, the molecules may form a liquid for example, compressed propane is a liquid, but as it is released from the tank it changes back to a gas. Gas particles have enough kinetic energy to overcome intermolecular forces that hold solids and liquids together, thus a gas has no definite volume and no definite shape. A plasma is a hot ionized gas consisting of approximately equal numbers of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons.

The characteristics of plasmas are significantly different from those of ordinary neutral gases so that plasmas are considered a distinct "fourth state of matter. Plasma consists of highly charged particles with extremely high kinetic energy. The noble gases helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon are often used to make glowing signs by using electricity to ionize them to the plasma state.

Stars are essentially superheated balls of plasma. From Wikibooks, open books for an open world. Namespaces Book Discussion. Views Read Edit Edit source View history. Reading room forum Community portal Bulletin Board Help out! Policies and guidelines Contact us. Add links. Extensive properties vary with the amount of the substance and include mass, weight, and volume.

Intensive properties , in contrast, do not depend on the amount of the substance; they include color, melting point, boiling point, electrical conductivity, and physical state at a given temperature. For example, elemental sulfur is a yellow crystalline solid that does not conduct electricity and has a melting point of As mass increases in a given volume, density also increases.

For example, lead, with its greater mass, has a far greater density than the same volume of air, just as a brick has a greater density than the same volume of Styrofoam. At a given temperature and pressure, the density of a pure substance is a constant:.

Pure water, for example, has a density of 0. Notice that corn oil has a lower mass to volume ratio than water. Physical changes are changes in which no chemical bonds are broken or formed.

This means that the same types of compounds or elements that were there at the beginning of the change are there at the end of the change. Because the ending materials are the same as the beginning materials, the properties such as color, boiling point, etc will also be the same.

Physical changes involve moving molecules around, but not changing them. Some types of physical changes include:.

As an ice cube melts, its shape changes as it acquires the ability to flow. However, its composition does not change. Physical changes can further be classified as reversible or irreversible. There are other properties we can mention here, but those fall under these six, which are considered the most important. Other properties of matter that deserve mention are refractive index, temperature, and hardness, for example.

These are all intensive properties, often described as bulk properties. They do not depend on the size of the system we are measuring, or the amount of material that can be found in that system. We already mentioned that chemical properties are those which we can measure only by changing the chemical structure of the substance we are measuring.

This means that these properties measure how matter behaves when put inside of a chemical reaction. These properties can become evident only during such a reaction. The four most important chemical properties are the heat of combustion, chemical stability, flammability, and the preferred oxidation state. The heat of combustion is the property of the energy that gets released when matter completely combusts through the use of oxygen.

This property measures the amount of energy that gets released during such a reaction. Chemical stability is the property that determines if a matter will react when placed in a specific environment. It is mostly observed by placing a compound in water or just leaving it outside to see how it reacts with air. These reactions are called hydrolysis and oxidation.