Question

In the laboratory, a chemist finds an unknown element 'X'. He looked into its properties and found the following:
1. It was a solid and was lustrous.
2. It did not conduct electricity on connecting it to a circuit.
3. It was non-malleable and non-ductile in nature.

The unkown element 'P' is:

Answer 1

We can see the properties of the given elements in the following table:
From the table we can see that the given properties resemble those of iodine.
Iodine is a non-metal and is solid at room temperature. Like other non-metals it is an electrical insulator, non-malleable, and non-ductile in nature but iodine has an exceptional property as well i.e. It is lustrous and shines.
Hence, the unknown element 'P' is iodine.