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sodium bromide were used as anticonvulsants and sedatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were gradually superseded by chloral hydrate and then by the barbiturates.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
Copper and halides. Both cuprous and cupric oxides are known. Among the numerous copper sulfides, important examples include copper(I) sulfide and copper(II) sulfide. Cuprous halides (with chlorine, bromine, and iodine) are known, as are cupric halides with fluorine, chlorine, and bromine. Attempts to prepare copper(II) iodide yield only cuprous iodide and iodine. Copper forms coordination complexes with ligands. In aqueous solution, copper(II) exists as [Cu(HO)]. This complex exhibits the fastest water exchange rate (speed of water ligands attaching and detaching) for any transition metal aquo complex. Adding aqueous sodium hydroxide causes the precipitation of light blue solid copper(II) hydroxide. A simplified