What’s your least favourite element on the periodic table from Alex and Tallulah

Question: What's your least favourite element on the periodic table from Alex and Tallulah
- Keywords:
  chemistry,
  element,
  periodic table
Asked by anon-373817 on 16 Nov 2023.
- Octavia Brayley answered on 16 Nov 2023:
  
  Maybe Polonium because it’s classed as the most dangerous element on Earth!
- Jonathan Allen answered on 17 Nov 2023:
  
  Yeah, Polonium would be my choice too.
- Andrew Lyon answered on 17 Nov 2023:
  
  Mercury and Lead have some pretty bad qualities but they do have their uses so I’d say Polonium
- Chathuri Silva answered on 20 Nov 2023:
  
  I like Potassium because how reactive it is 😀
- Ian McKinley answered on 21 Nov 2023:
  
  I would say Plutonium. It is not only very toxic (almost as bad as polonium), but is the basis of many nuclear weapons – and also has incredibly complicated chemistry.
  On the positive side, it can be used as fuel in nuclear reactors – but it does need to be handled very carefully and resulting wastes disposed of deep underground.
- Amy Stockwell answered on 21 Nov 2023:
  
  Sulphur, because it makes lots of smelly compounds. Commonly referenced smelly sulphur compounds are hydrogen sulphide (H2S) which smells of rotten eggs, mustard gas and the funny smell in your wee after eating asparagus.
- Ollie Thomas answered on 21 Nov 2023:
  
  I don’t really have a least favourite element as they all have their uses and life wouldn’t work without them. I guess I would probably have to say, there are quite a lot of lanthanide and actinide elements (the ones at the bottom of the periodic table) which are named after famous scientists and to me they just sound a bit silly (like nobellium, einsteinium, curieum etc…)
- Alex Leide answered on 24 Nov 2023:
  
  It’s annoying when an element could be really useful, but one property lets it down. Like it’s 99% perfect, but that 1% is a dealbreaker. Very annoying!
  Beryllium has some really good properties which would be great to use in a fusion reactor, but because it is toxic we can’t use it. It’s really close to being amazing, but I hate that one thing ruins it! Molybdenum and nickel would be a really good metals to use as well, but these become very radioactive inside a fusion reactor so we’re not allowed to use them either.