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Assuming you mean sodium and potassium in metallic / liquid form, bonds are based on their affinity for that "extra" electron. Sodium has a slightly higher affinity, so its bond lengths can be a little shorter, making the nucleii closer together. Both sodium and potassium form (as metals) body-centered cubic structures, so the entire density difference is due to the bond strength.

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16y ago
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12y ago

Sodium has a higher MP than potassium does because the dispersion forces (electron and proton attraction forces) are much greater than those of potassium's. This is due to the distance of the valence electrons to the nucleus of the atom. The further the distance, the weaker the dispersion forces and thus the requirement of lesser amounts energy to break those bonds.

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12y ago

as we know, on moving down the group, generally there is increase in density. But moving from sodium to potassium, there is increase in charge by 8 units, but atomic radius of potassium got much increase due to presence of 3d subshell but in case of sodium, there is no presence of d subshell.

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11y ago

due to the addition of d-shell in electronic configuration of potassium volume of atom increases abruptly thus density decreases as a result it happens that the density is lower even than sodium.

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9y ago
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13y ago

Due to large increase in Atomic radius from Na to K.

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8y ago

Both of them are in same group. It is because of molar mass of sodium is higher than lithium.

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12y ago

potassium is less dense than water

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Q: Why does sodium have a higher melting point than potassium?
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Sodium has a melting point of 97.72 oC and rubidium has a melting point of 39.48 oC.


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Caesium melts at 28.44oC, which is the lowest known melting point for any metallic element other than mercury. Certain radioactive elements might have lower melting points if it were possible to collect a large enough quantity of them to actually determine the melting point. For example, the melting point of francium is expected to be lower than that of caesium (but still higher than that of mercury). Also, some alloys melt at low temperatures. A eutectic alloy of sodium and potassium melts at around -12oC, still higher than mercury, but below caesium (and well below either sodium or potassium alone as well).


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