The Reactivity Series

This lesson covers the reactivity series as required by the Edexcel GCSE Chemistry specification (1CH0), Topic 4: Extraction of Metals and Equilibria. You need to know the order of metals in the reactivity series, understand how it is determined experimentally, and recall the reactions of metals with water and dilute acids.

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What Is the Reactivity Series?

The reactivity series is a list of metals arranged in order of their reactivity, from the most reactive at the top to the least reactive at the bottom. It is determined by observing how vigorously metals react with water, dilute acids and oxygen.

Carbon and hydrogen are included as reference points, even though they are non-metals. Their positions are important for understanding metal extraction and acid reactions.

graph TD
    subgraph "The Reactivity Series"
    K["<b>Potassium (K)</b> — Most reactive"]
    Na["<b>Sodium (Na)</b>"]
    Ca["<b>Calcium (Ca)</b>"]
    Mg["<b>Magnesium (Mg)</b>"]
    Al["<b>Aluminium (Al)</b>"]
    C["<b>Carbon (C)</b> ← reference"]
    Zn["<b>Zinc (Zn)</b>"]
    Fe["<b>Iron (Fe)</b>"]
    H["<b>Hydrogen (H)</b> ← reference"]
    Cu["<b>Copper (Cu)</b>"]
    Ag["<b>Silver (Ag)</b>"]
    Au["<b>Gold (Au)</b>"]
    Pt["<b>Platinum (Pt)</b> — Least reactive"]
    end

    K --> Na --> Ca --> Mg --> Al --> C --> Zn --> Fe --> H --> Cu --> Ag --> Au --> Pt