Chlorine devastating because the existing gas masks were difficult to deploy and had not been broadly distributed. Chlorine is the second halogen, being a nonmetal in group 17 of the periodic table. Its properties are thus similar to fluorine, bromine, and iodine, and are largely intermediate between those of the first two. Chlorine has the electron configuration [Ne]3s3p, with the seven electrons in the third and outermost shell acting as its valence electrons. Like all halogens, it is thus one electron short of a full octet, and is hence a strong oxidising agent, reacting with many elements in order to complete
Compounds of fluorine state is −1. It differs from this value in elemental fluorine, where the atoms are bonded to each other and thus at oxidation state 0, and a few polyatomic ions: the very unstable anions and with intermediate oxidation states exist at very low temperatures, decomposing at around 40 K. Also, the cation and a few related species have been predicted to be stable. Fluorine forms compounds with all elements except neon and helium. In particular, it forms binary compounds, named fluorides, with all said elements except argon. All of the elements up to einsteinium, element 99, have been checked except