JPKCom DB

Periodic Table (PSE) — Examples

Paths through the Periodic Table (PSE): look up an element, explore categories, state at a temperature, color scales, calculate molar mass, share links.

Back to the overview: Periodic Table (PSE) · Open the tool live: www.jpkc.com/tools/pse/

The manual explains layout, data, and controls in detail. This page adds concrete paths through the tool: typical tasks, walked through step by step. The interface starts in your browser's language; the labels quoted here are the English ones.

Example 1: Look up a specific element

The classic — you want the data for one element, say iron.

  1. Open the PSE and type Iron into the search field — or Eisen, Fe, or 26. The search checks both language names, the symbol, and the atomic number, so all four get you there.
  2. The iron tile gets a bright frame as the exact match. With Iron, Eisen, and 26 it's the only tile left highlighted; with Fe a few others light up as well, because their German names contain "fe" (Schwefel and Kupfer, i.e. sulfur and copper) or their English name does (fermium) — the frame still points unmistakably to iron.
  3. Press Enter: the detail view opens straight away with the full data set — atomic number 26, atomic mass 55.845 u, period and group, block, state of matter, electron configuration, electronegativity, melting and boiling point, density, oxidation states, discovery, and CAS number. Clicking the tile works too.
  4. Prefer Celsius? Close the dialog, set Temperature unit to °C, and open the iron tile again — the melting point now reads 1538 °C (1811 K).
  5. Clear the search afterward with the × button next to the search field (or Escape inside the field).

That answers questions like "What oxidation states does iron have?" or "What's the melting point?" in seconds.

Example 2: Explore an element category

You don't want a single element but a whole group — say all the noble gases.

  1. Make sure Colour by is set to Category (the default). Then the color legend sits above the grid — and every entry doubles as a filter.
  2. Click Noble Gases (cyan). Instantly only helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon, and oganesson stay highlighted; the rest of the table dims.
  3. Now you can see at a glance how the group is distributed across the periodic table (the entire right column). Click through the individual tiles to compare their data.
  4. A second click on Noble Gases clears the filter again — or switch straight to another category.

The same way, you can explore alkali metals, transition metals, halogens, or the two f-block rows (lanthanoids, actinoids).

Example 3: Switch to German and work with German names

The PSE is bilingual by itself — especially handy for teaching or learning in German.

  1. The table starts in your browser's language. If it's in English, click the button with the translation icon at the top right; its label "DE" tells you it switches to German.
  2. Instantly the table title, all labels, all element names (Wasserstoff instead of Hydrogen, Quecksilber instead of Mercury, Blei instead of Lead), and the category labels in the legend change to German — and values such as density or electronegativity switch to a decimal comma.
  3. Now open a tile: the detail view labels the values "Ordnungszahl", "Schmelzpunkt", "Oxidationsstufen", and so on.
  4. Your language choice persists — your next visit opens the PSE straight in German.

The button text always shows the other language: when the table is already in German, the button reads "EN".

Example 4: Jump straight to an element by atomic number

Sometimes you know the atomic number, not the name — for instance an exercise that says "element 79".

  1. Type just 79 into the search field. The search accepts the atomic number as an exact input.
  2. Exactly one tile stays highlighted: gold (Au). Enter opens it directly.
  3. The same way you find any other element by its number — 1 for hydrogen, 92 for uranium, 118 for oganesson. The address is even quicker: https://www.jpkc.com/tools/pse/#79 opens gold right away.

Handy when a task only names the atomic number and you need to identify the element.

Example 5: Page through a series of elements

You want to compare neighboring elements without searching each tile individually — for instance to follow a trend across a period.

  1. Open a starting element, for example sodium (11).
  2. In the detail view, use the arrow buttons in the footer or the left/right arrow keys to jump to the next or previous element. The order follows the atomic number.
  3. This way you page from sodium through magnesium, aluminium, silicon … and watch how properties like state of matter, electronegativity, or melting point change from element to element.
  4. At the start (hydrogen) and end (oganesson) of the series the respective arrow is disabled, so you can't page "off the edge".

It's the fastest way to follow a trend along the atomic number without closing the dialog in between.

Example 6: Tell metals, metalloids, and nonmetals apart

You want to understand how the PSE sorts the elements into classes.

  1. Make sure the Category view is selected and no filter is active (press the × button if needed). Now you see the full, color-coded grid.
  2. The colors tell the story: metals dominate in several shades (alkali and alkaline earth metals, transition and post-transition metals), the metalloids (teal) form the narrow diagonal transition, and the top right holds the reactive nonmetals (except hydrogen, top left), halogens, and noble gases.
  3. Filter one after another to Metalloids, then Reactive Nonmetals, then Noble Gases to see which elements belong to each and where the "staircase line" between metals and nonmetals runs.
  4. Open a metalloid like silicon or germanium and compare its data with a clear metal (iron) and a clear nonmetal (sulfur).

That turns the plain table into a small, self-explanatory lesson on the system behind the periodic table.

Example 7: Which elements melt in your hand?

The temperature view answers questions a plain table can't — for example, which elements are liquid at body temperature.

  1. Set Colour by to State at a temperature. A temperature slider appears, set to 298 K — room temperature.
  2. The legend counts: 2 liquid elements (bromine and mercury, cyan), 11 gases (yellow), the rest solid (gray) or unknown (dashed).
  3. Set Temperature unit to °C and move the slider until the readout says 37 °C. For fine-tuning, focus the slider and use the arrow keys — each step is 1 K.
  4. Now five tiles are cyan: bromine and mercury are joined by gallium, cesium, and francium. Click gallium to see why: melting point 29.76 °C (302.91 K).
  5. Room temp. takes you back to 25 °C.

Turn the slider further up and you watch the periodic table boil away bit by bit: at 6000 K almost every element with known data is a gas. Arsenic jumps straight from solid to gas along the way — it sublimes, and the tool reflects that.

Textbook trends like "electronegativity increases toward the top right" can be shown right in the grid.

  1. Set Colour by to Electronegativity. The grid shades from dark violet (low) to yellow (high); the legend gives the range from 0.7 to 3.98.
  2. The dark tiles sit at the bottom left (cesium and francium at 0.79 and 0.7), while fluorine glows yellow at the top right with 3.98.
  3. Most noble gases and the superheavy elements are hatched — there's no Pauling value for them ("no data").
  4. Switch to Density: the scale is logarithmic so the gases at the top right stand apart from the heavy metals. At the yellow end sits osmium with 22.59 g/cm³.
  5. Switch to Year of discovery: the elements known since antiquity (carbon, sulfur, iron, copper, gold, and a few more) sit at the dark end, the most recent discoveries at the bright end — the latest year in the data is 2010 (tennessine).

Handy for class: one view, one trend, no extra chart needed.

Example 9: Calculate the molar mass of a compound

For a calculation you need the molar mass of potassium hexacyanoferrate(II), better known as yellow prussiate of potash.

  1. Scroll below the periodic table to the Molar mass calculator.

  2. Type the formula, brackets and all, into the Formula field:

    K4[Fe(CN)6]

  3. The result appears instantly: 368.345 g/mol. Below it you get the Hill formula C6FeK4N6 and a table with count and mass share per element.

  4. Copy puts the number on the clipboard (as 368.345).

  5. Hydrates work the same way: CuSO4·5H2O comes to 249.677 g/mol. No middle dot on your keyboard? Write CuSO4*5H2O or CuSO4.5H2O.

For ions, attach the charge with ^: SO4^2- gives 96.056 g/mol. Without the ^ (SO42-) the calculator reads the 42 as a subscript — and the 95 % oxygen mass share in the table gives the typo away immediately.

You want to show a class or a colleague exactly one element.

  1. Open the element, for example mercury (search Hg, Enter).

  2. In the detail view, click Copy link. The clipboard now holds the address with the fragment #Hg.

  3. Anyone who opens the link lands straight in mercury's detail view — in their own language and temperature unit.

  4. Hand-built links work as well, say for a worksheet:

    https://www.jpkc.com/tools/pse/#80
https://www.jpkc.com/tools/pse/#mercury

There's more: the overview for the big picture, the manual for all data and control details, and the tips & tricks for tricks and pitfalls. You can try it all directly in the tool.