Bromine in daguerreotypy. Potassium bromide and sodium bromide were used as anticonvulsants and sedatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were gradually superseded by chloral hydrate and then by the barbiturates. In the early years of the First World War, bromine compounds such as xylyl bromide were used as poison gas. Bromine is the third halogen, being a nonmetal in group 17 of the periodic table. Its properties are thus similar to those of fluorine, chlorine, and iodine, and tend to be intermediate between those of the two neighbouring halogens, chlorine and iodine. Bromine has the electron configuration
Graphite intercalation compound A stage n magnetic GIC has n graphite layers separating successive magnetic layers. As the stage number increases the interaction between spins in successive magnetic layers becomes weaker and 2D magnetic behaviour may arise. Chlorine and bromine reversibly intercalate into graphite. Iodine does not. Fluorine reacts irreversibly. In the case of bromine, the following stoichiometries are known: CBr for n = 8, 12, 14, 16, 20, and 28. Because it forms irreversibly, carbon monofluoride is often not classified as an intercalation compound. It has the formula (CF). It is prepared by reaction of gaseous fluorine with graphitic carbon at 215–230