What is Bromine atom?

     

Bromine is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35.  It is the third-lightest halogen  and is a fuming red-brown liquid at room temperature that evaporates readily to form a similarly coloured gas.  Its properties are thus intermediate between those of Chlorine and Iodine.  Isolated independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob lowing and Antoine Jerome Balard its name was derived from the Ancient Greek, referencing its sharp and disagreeable smell.  

     Elemental bromine is very reactive and thus does not occur free in nature, but in colourless soluble crystalline mineral halide salts, analogous to table salt.  While it is rather rare in the Earth's crust, the high solubility of the bromide ion(Br-) has caused it accumulation in the oceans.  Commercially the elemetn is easily extracted from brine pools, mostly in the United states, Israel and China.  The mass of bromine in the oceans is about one three-hundredth that chlorine.  

     At high temperatures, organobromine compounds readily dissociated to yield free bromine atoms, a process that stops free radical chemical chain reactions.  This effect makes organobromine compounds useful as fire retardants, and more than half the bromine produced worldwide each year is put to this purpose.  The same property causes ultraviolet sunlight to dissociated volatile organobromine compounds in the atmosphere to yield free bromine atoms, causing ozone depletion.  As a result, many organobromide compounds-such as the pesticide methyl bromide-are no longer used.  Bromine compounds are still used in well drilling fluids, in photographic film, and as an intermediate in the manufacture of organic chemicals.