// chemistry › Elements Explorer
Explore all 118 elements: filter by organic or inorganic, then click any element for a rotatable 3D atomic model, its properties, where it is found and used, and how it helps in daily life.
118 elements - click to explore
A mind behind this: Dmitri Mendeleev 1834–1907
Showing all 118 elements.
Drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · electron shells are accurate, orbit geometry is illustrative
| Chemical formula (elemental) | |
|---|---|
| Atomic weight | |
| Distinctive colour | |
| Category | |
| Period / Group | |
| Electron shells | |
| Classification |
The full table is always shown. Use the Organic and Inorganic buttons to highlight those groups of elements, then click any element to open a popup with a rotatable 3D atomic model and its details. Drag the model to spin it and scroll to zoom.
A single element's 'chemical formula' is the form it naturally takes as a pure substance. Oxygen travels as O2 (two atoms), sulfur as S8 (eight-atom rings), while metals like iron are written simply as Fe. Noble gases such as helium are single atoms (He).
Strictly, those words describe compounds, not elements. This tool uses 'Organic' as a handy label for the elements at the heart of organic chemistry - hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur and the common organic halogens - and 'Inorganic' for the rest.
No - atoms are far too small to photograph, and modern physics describes electrons as fuzzy clouds, not neat orbits. The model is a Bohr-shell diagram: the electron-shell counts are accurate, but the circular orbits are an illustration to make the structure clear.
Many heavy elements past uranium are made only in laboratories, a few atoms at a time, and survive for less than a second. They are real and important for science, but they genuinely have no use in daily life - so the tool says so honestly rather than inventing one.