Group 12 element of 40 mg/day. Mercury and cadmium are toxic and may cause environmental damage if they enter rivers or rain water. This may result in contaminated crops as well as the bioaccumulation of mercury in a food chain leading to an increase in illnesses caused by mercury and cadmium poisoning. Group 12 element Group 12, by modern IUPAC numbering, is a group of chemical elements in the periodic table. It includes zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd) and mercury (Hg). The further inclusion of copernicium (Cn) in group 12 is supported by recent experiments on individual copernicium atoms. Formerly this group was named
Period 5 element Period 5 element A period 5 element is one of the chemical elements in the fifth row (or "period") of the periodic table of the elements. The periodic table is laid out in rows to illustrate recurring (periodic) trends in the chemical behaviour of the elements as their atomic number increases: a new row is begun when chemical behaviour begins to repeat, meaning that elements with similar behaviour fall into the same vertical columns. The fifth period contains 18 elements, beginning with rubidium and ending with xenon. As a rule, period 5 elements fill their 5s shells first, then their