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
Extended periodic table The next six elements on the periodic table should be the last main-group elements in their period. In elements 167 to 172, the 9p and 8p shells will be filled. Their energy eigenvalues are so close together that they behave as one combined "p" shell, similar to the non-relativistic 2p and 3p shells. Thus, the inert pair effect does not occur and the most common oxidation states of elements 167 to 170 should be +3, +4, +5, and +6 respectively. Element 171 (unseptunium) is expected to show some similarities to the halogens, showing various oxidation states ranging from −1 to