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sodium bromide were used as anticonvulsants and sedatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were gradually superseded by chloral hydrate and then by the barbiturates.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
Bromine trifluoride Bromine trifluoride Bromine trifluoride is an interhalogen compound with the formula BrF. It is a straw-coloured liquid with a pungent odor. It is soluble in sulfuric acid but reacts violently with water and organic compounds. It is a powerful fluorinating agent and an ionizing inorganic solvent. It is used to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF) in the processing and reprocessing of nuclear fuel. Bromine trifluoride was first described by Paul Lebeau in 1906, who obtained the material by the reaction of bromine with fluorine at 20 °C: The disproportionation of bromine monofluoride also gives bromine trifluoride: Like ClF and IF, the