The reactivity series is sometimes quoted in the strict reverse order of standard electrode potentials, when it is also known as the "electrochemical series".
The following list includes the metallic elements of the first six periods. It is mostly based on tables provided by NIST. However, not all sources give the same values: there are some differences between the precise values given by NIST and the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. In the first six periods this does not make a difference to the relative order, but in the seventh period it does, so the seventh-period elements have been excluded. (In any case, the typical oxidation states for the most accessible seventh-period elements thorium and uranium are too high to allow a direct comparison.)
Hydrogen has been included as a benchmark, although it is not a metal. Borderline germanium, antimony, and astatine have been included. Some other elements in the middle of the 4d and 5d rows have been omitted (Zr–Tc, Hf–Os) when their simple cations are too highly charged or of rather doubtful existence. Greyed-out rows indicate values based on estimation rather than experiment.
The positions of lithium, sodium and gold are changed on such a series.
Standard electrode potentials offer a quantitative measure of the power of a reducing agent, rather than the qualitative considerations of other reactive series. However, they are only valid for standard conditions: in particular, they only apply to reactions in aqueous solution. Even with this proviso, the electrode potentials of lithium, sodium and gold – and hence their positions in the electrochemical series – appear anomalous. The order of reactivity, as shown by the vigour of the reaction with water or the speed at which the metal surface tarnishes in air, appears to be
:caesium>potassium > sodium > lithium > alkaline earth metals,
i.e., alkali metals>alkaline earth metals
the same as the reverse order of the (gas-phase) ionization energies. This is borne out by the extraction of metallic lithium by the electrolysis of a eutectic mixture of lithium chloride and potassium chloride: lithium metal is formed at the cathode, not potassium.