| Símbolo | Be |
| Número atómico | 4 |
| Grupo | 2 (Alcalinotérreos) |
| Período | 2 |
| Bloque | s |
| Clasificación | Alcalinotérreos |
| Apariencia | White-gray metallic |
| Color | Gris Pizarra |
| Número de protones | 4 p+ |
| Número de neutrones | 5 n0 |
| Número de electrones | 4 e- |
| Fase en STP | Sólido |
| Densidad | 1.85 g/cm3 |
| Peso atómico | 9.01218 u |
| Punto de fusión | 1560 K 1286.85 °C 2348.33 °F |
| Punto de ebullición | 2742 K 2468.85 °C 4475.93 °F |
| Entalpía de vaporización | 297 kJ/mol |
| Electronegatividad (Escala de Pauling) | 1.57 |
| Afinidad electrónica | -48 kJ/mol |
| Estado de oxidación | 0, +1, +2 (an amphoteric oxide) |
| Energía de ionización |
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| Descubrimiento | Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1798) |
| Primer aislamiento | Friedrich Wöhler, Antoine Bussy (1828) |
Descubrimiento de berilio The mineral beryl, which contains beryllium, has been used at least since the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. In the first century CE, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder mentioned in his encyclopedia Natural History that beryl and emerald ("smaragdus") were similar. The Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis, written in the third or fourth century CE, contains notes on how to prepare artificial emerald and beryl. In a 1798 paper read before the Institut de France, Vauquelin reported that he found a new "earth" by dissolving aluminium hydroxide from emerald and beryl in an additional alkali. The editors of the journal Annales de Chimie et de Physique named the new earth "glucine" for the sweet taste of some of its compounds. Klaproth preferred the name "beryllina" due to the fact that yttria also formed sweet salts. The name "beryllium" was first used by Wöhler in 1828. | |