Neither of the two answers you have are correct. Phosphorous has five valence electrons, while silicon has four.
Solid silicon exists in a network of silicon atoms just like the tetrahedral arrangement of carbon atoms in diamond, which has the highest melting point. Since the structure is very strong and the Si-Si bond energies are almost as strong as the C-C bonds in diamond, then silicon’s melting point will also be very high.
There are many allotropes of phosphorous, each with its own melting point (and boiling point) and structure. But all the melting points of these allotropes are below that of silicon.
For instance, in white phosphorous, the atoms form tetrahedra, but each tetrahedron of phosphorous atoms is then bound to the next by much weaker intermolecular forces called London dispersion forces. This results in a low melting point.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

2 Comments to “Why Does Silicon Have A Higher Boiling Point Then Phosphorus?”

  1. pisgahch says:

    Has more valence electrons. And its a bigger atom.

  2. Yu says:

    The valence my dear.

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>