Chemguide: Core Chemistry 14 - 16

An introduction to the Reactivity Series

This page takes a brief look at what the reactivity series consists of. There will be much more detail in further pages in this section.

The Reactivity Series

The reactivity series lists the metals (and a couple of non-metals) in order of decreasing reactivity. So sodium and potassium, for example, are extremely reactive, and gold is virtually unreactive. Common metals like aluminium and zinc and iron are somewhere in the middle.

The rest of the Reactivity Series topic looks at how you can build up this list, and its importance in chemistry.