Dr.

Witek Nazarewicz draws the blueprint

for what may just prove to be a brand new
element


Witek Nazarewicz is an explorer, of sorts. His tools are math and physics, his terrain
is the nuclear landscape, and his mission is to find the "magic nuclei." He has recently
come closer to his goal by providing the mathematical calculations for what might
turn out to be the newest additions to the periodic table: elements 114, 116, and 118.
Dr. Nazarewicz is a theoretical physicist who lends his expertise to both the
University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His specialty is the
nucleus, the bundle of neutrons and protons that serves as the nerve center of all atoms
and contains most of their mass. When the Curies discovered 100 years ago that not
all nuclei are stable (radioactivity), a new era began for science. Physicists began to
wonder what were the limits of charge and mass for a nucleus. By playing with the
numbers of protons and neutrons, they could synthesize elements in laboratories. But
while naturally occurring elements are long-lived, the unstable lab-created variety had
much shorter lifetimes, quickly falling victim to decay. Thus the challenge for
theorists like Dr. Nazarewicz was to draw some sort of blueprint to map out the
uncharted territory of the nuclear landscape (or "terra incognita," as he calls it) to
create heavy elements, or, as he says, "see how far you can go in atomic mass; how
heavy you can make the stuff." For the past several years, he and his colleagues from
Warsaw and Brussels have been designing mathematical models to do just that. As it
turns out, another group of physicists was conducting an experiment that would fit
those blueprints quite well.

Dr. Nazarewicz's illustration of the nuclear landscape, which compares the region of
unknown nuclei to unexplored territory in Africa (terra incognita).

A New Addition to the Periodic Table? Maybe.
During November and December of 1998, scientists from the Joint Institute for
Nuclear Research in Russia and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory were busy running
experiments to see just how "heavy" they could go. For 40 days, they bombarded
plutonium targets with calcium ions, creating 10
18
collisions. Of all those, one decay
chain stood out as a candidate to be a new element, number 114. The chain had a
much longer lifetime than the last element, 112, discovered in 1996. When Dr.
Nazarewicz and his team heard of the project, they provided the experimentalists with
their mathematical models and found remarkable agreement between the theory and
experiment. In April of this year, another team from Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory and Oregon State University performed similar experiments, using lead
targets and krypton ions. The results showed three decay chains, indicating not only
element 114 but elements 116 and 118 as well. Robert Smolanczuk of Poland's Soltan
Institute provided the initial theory calculations for this work, which was also
supported by the calculations by S. Cwiok (Warsaw/JIHIR), Dr. Nazarewicz, and P.H.
Heenen (Brussels/JIHIR).
Although he is quick to acknowledge the data are not 100 percent conclusive, Dr.
Nazarewicz is certainly encouraged by the evidence his work provides for the possible
existence of element 114. These are "calculations that greatly support the
identification made in experimental papers," he said. The work is being chronicled in
the scientific literature, as the experimental group submitted a paper in March 1999 to
Physical Review Letters, to be followed by another paper by Dr. Nazarewicz's theory
group. A second experimental paper, on a second isotope of element 114, has also
been submitted to Nature by the Dubna group. The Berkeley/Oregon paper was
submitted to the same journal in June 1999. Below is what the periodic table looks
like with the possible inclusion of elements 114, 116, and 118.

Gaining Ground on the "Magic Nuclei"
Dr. Nazarewicz explained that what makes this work so exciting is that it
demonstrates that scientists are getting closer to the superheavy "magic nuclei,"
longest-lived super-heavy elements. Scientists began making predictions about these
elements some 30 years ago. In 1981, Bohrium (element 107) became the first
member of the superheavy class. Since then, Dr. Nazarewicz explained that
subsequent element discoveries are "slowly approaching greater shell stability," as
their lifetimes have gone from microseconds to several minutes. As explained in the
1999 National Research Council report, Nuclear Physics: the Core of Matter, the Fuel
of Stars, "superheavies" are important because they would provide "crucial
information on relativistic effects in atomic physic and quantum chemistry."
The superheavies represent the fourth period of radioactive element discovery in
scientific history. The first (1896-1940) was characterized by the Curies' work and the
discovery of polonium. The Manhattan Project marked the second period (1940-
1952), when plutonium became part of the periodic table. The third period (1955-
1974) witnessed a Cold War competition of sorts between Russian laboratories at
Dubna and American laboratories in Berkeley to discover new elements. The fourth
period (1974-1996) has been dominated by work in Darmstadt, Germany, which has
been responsible for six new elements since 1981. The last three (110, 111, and 112)
are still unnamed, due to the "politics involved," Dr. Nazarewicz said. Because of
disputes over the proper name for these new elements, the International Union for
Pure and Applied Chemistry has devised a Latin system to give each a temporary
name based on its individual numbers. So for now, 114 is technically ununquadium,
116 is ununhexium, and 118 is ununoctium.
Although more experimentation will be necessary to prove the elements' existence,
Dr. Nazarewicz will turn his attention back to drawing new blueprints of the nuclear
landscape in search of magic nuclei.
"I'm a theorist," he says with a laugh. "I don't smash atoms."
Question
1. What two new elements have been recognized by the International Union of Pure and
Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
(IUPAP)?
Answer

1. Elements 114 and 116. Both elements are artificially produced transuranium elements.
Element 114 had been temporarily christened ununquadium (Uuq), which means one-
one-four in Latin, but the discoverers have proposed the name flerovium, after Russian
physicist Georgy Flyorov; element 116 had been temporarily christened ununhexium
(Uuh), which means one-one-six in Latin, but the discoverers have proposed the
name moscovium, after the city of Moscow. For more information on the naming of the
elements, see the Guardians piece by Emine Saner.

1. Flerovium
Chemical Element
2. Flerovium is the superheavy artificial chemical element with the symbol Fl and atomic number 114. It is an
extremely radioactive element that can only be created in the laboratory and does not occur in
nature. Wikipedia
3.
4. Symbol: Uuq
5. Atomic number: 114
6. Discovered: 1998
7. Electrons per shell: 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, 4
8. Discoverer: Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions
9. Atomic mass: 289 u
10. Chemical series: Metal, Carbon group, Period 7 element

Flerovium
114
Fl












Pb






Fl

(Uho)
ununtrium flerovium ununpentium

Flerovium in the periodic table
Appearance
unknown
General properties
Name,symbol,number flerovium, Fl, 114
Pronunciation /flrovim/
fli-ROH-vee-m
Element category unknown
but probably a poor metal
Group, period,block 14, 7, p
Standard atomic weight [289]
Electron configuration [Rn] 5f
14
6d
10
7s
2
7p
2

(predicted)
2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, 4
(predicted)
Physical properties
Phase solid (predicted)
Density(near r.t.) 14 (predicted)
[3]
gcm
3

Melting point 340 K, 67 C, 160(predicted) F
Boiling point 420 K, 147 C, 297(predicted) F
Heat of vaporization 38 (predicted) kJmol
1

Atomic properties
Oxidation states 0, 2, 4 (predicted)
Ionization energies
(more)
1st: 823.9 (predicted) kJmol
1

2nd: 1601.6 (predicted) kJmol
1

3rd: 3367.3 (predicted) kJmol
1

Atomic radius 180 (predicted) pm
Covalent radius 171177 (extrapolated) pm
Miscellanea
CAS registry number 54085-16-4
History
Naming after Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear
Reactions (itself named afterGeorgy Flyorov)
Discovery Joint Institute for Nuclear
Research and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory(1999)
Most stable isotopes
Main article: Isotopes of flerovium
iso NA half-
life
DM DE (MeV) DP
289
Fl syn 2.6 s 9.82,9.48
285
Cn
289m
Fl ? syn 1.1
min
9.67
285m
Cn ?
288
Fl syn 0.8 s 9.94
284
Cn
287
Fl syn 0.48 s 10.02
283
Cn
287m
Fl ?? syn 5.5 s 10.29
283m
Cn ??
286
Fl syn 0.13 s 40% 10.19
282
Cn

60%SF
285
Fl syn 125 ms
281
Cn


Flerovium
Flerovium is the superheavy artificial chemical element with the
symbol Fl and atomic number 114. It is an extremely radioactiveelement
that can only be created in the laboratory and does not occur in nature. The
element is named after the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of
the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, where the
element was discovered in 1998. The name of the laboratory, in turn,
honors the Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov. The name was adopted
by IUPAC on May 30, 2012.
In the periodic table of the elements, it is a transactinide element in the p-
block. It is a member of the 7th period and is currently placed as the
heaviest known member of the carbon group. Initial chemical studies
performed in 20072008 indicated that flerovium was unexpectedly volatile
for a group 14 element; in preliminary results it even seemed to exhibit
properties similar to those of thenoble gases. More recent results show that
flerovium's reaction with gold is similar to that of copernicium, showing that
it is a veryvolatile element that may even be gaseous at standard
temperature and pressure, and that while it would show metallic properties,
consistent with it being the heavier homologue of lead, it would also be the
least reactive metal in group 14.
About 80 atoms of flerovium have been observed to date: 50 were
synthesized directly, while the rest were made from the radioactive
decay of even heavier elements. All of these flerovium atoms have been
shown to have mass numbers from 285 to 289. The most stable
known flerovium isotope, flerovium-289, has a half-life of around
2.6 seconds, but it is possible that this flerovium isotope may have
a nuclear isomer with a longer half-life of 66 seconds; this would be one of
the longest half-lives of any isotope of a superheavy element. Flerovium is
predicted to be near the centre of the theorized island of stability, and it is
expected that heavier flerovium isotopes, especially the possibly doubly
magic flerovium-298, may have even longer half-lives.
History
Pre-discovery
From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, the early days of the synthesis of
heavier and heavier transuranium elements, it was predicted that since
such heavy elements did not occur in nature, they would have shorter and
shorter half-lives to spontaneous fission, until they stopped being able to
exist altogether at around element 108. Initial work in the synthesis of
the actinides appeared to confirm this. However, the nuclear shell
model was introduced in the late 1960s, which stated that
the protons and neutronsformed shells within a nucleus, just
like electrons forming electron shells within an atom. The noble
gases are unreactive due to their having full electron shells; thus it was
theorized that elements with full nuclear shells having so-called "magic"
numbers of protons or neutrons would be stabilized against radioactive
decay. A doubly-magic isotope, having magic numbers of both protons and
neutrons, would be especially stabilized, and it was calculated that the next
doubly-magic isotope after lead-208 would be flerovium-298 with 114
protons and 184 neutrons, which would form the centre of a so-called
"island of stability".
[9]
This island of stability, supposedly centering
around elements 112 to element 118, would come just after a long "sea of
instability" from elements 101 to111, and the flerovium isotopes in it were
speculated in 1966 to have half-lives in excess of a hundred million years.
It was not until thirty years later, however, that the first isotopes of flerovium
would be synthesized. More recent work, however, suspects that the local
islands of stability around hassium and flerovium are due to these nuclei
being respectively deformed and oblate, which make them resistant
towards spontaneous fission, and that the true island of stability for
spherical nuclei occurs at around unbibium-306 (with 122 protons and 184
neutrons).
Discovery
Flerovium was first synthesized in December 1998 by a team of scientists
at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia led
by Yuri Oganessian, who bombarded a target of plutonium-244 with
accelerated nuclei of calcium-48:
244 48 292 289 1
Pu + Ca Fl Fl + 3 n
94 20 114 114 0

A single atom of flerovium, decaying by alpha emission with a half-life of
30 seconds, was detected. This observation was assigned to the
isotope flerovium-289 and was subsequently published in January
1999. However, the decay chain observed has not been repeated and
the exact identity of this activity is unknown, although it is possible that it
is due to a metastable isomer, namely
289m
Fl.
Glenn T. Seaborg, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory who had been involved in work to synthesize such
superheavy elements, stated in December 1997 that "one of his longest-
lasting and most cherished dreams was to see one of these magic
elements"; he received notice of the synthesis of flerovium from his
colleague Albert Ghiorso soon after its publication 1999. Ghiorso later
recalled:

Road to confirmation
In March 1999, the same team replaced the
244
Pu target with a
242
Pu one in
order to produce other flerovium isotopes. This time two atoms of flerovium
were produced, alpha decaying with a half-life of 5.5 s. They were assigned
as
287
Fl. Once again, this activity has not been seen again and it is unclear
what nucleus was produced. It is possible that it was a meta-stable isomer,
namely
287m
Fl.
The now-confirmed discovery of flerovium was made in June 1999 when
the Dubna team repeated the first reaction from 1998. This time, two atoms
of element 114 were produced; they alpha decayed with a half-life of
2.6 s. This activity was initially assigned to
288
Fl in error, due to the
confusion regarding the above observations. Further work in December
2002 finally allowed a positive reassignment to
289
Fl.
In May 2009, the Joint Working Party (JWP) of IUPAC published a report
on the discovery of copernicium in which they acknowledged the discovery
of the isotope
283
Cn. This therefore implied the de facto discovery of
flerovium, from the acknowledgment of the data for the synthesis of
287
Fl
and
291
Lv (see below), relating to
283
Cn. The discovery of the isotopes
flerovium-286 and -287 was confirmed in January 2009 at Berkeley. This
was followed by confirmation of flerovium-288 and -289 in July 2009 at the
GSI. In 2011, IUPAC evaluated the Dubna team experiments of 1999
2007. Whereas they found the early data inconclusive, the results of 2004
2007 were accepted as identification of flerovium, and the element was
officially recognized as having been discovered.
Naming


Stamp of Russia, issued in 2013, dedicated to Georgy Flyorov and
flerovium
Using Mendeleev's nomenclature for unnamed and undiscovered
elements, flerovium is sometimes called eka-lead. In 1979, IUPAC
published recommendations according to which the element was to be
called ununquadium (with the corresponding symbol of Uuq), asystematic
element name as a placeholder, until the discovery of the element is
confirmed and a permanent name is decided on. The recommendations
were mostly ignored among scientists, who called it "element 114", with the
symbol of (114) or even simply 114.
According to IUPAC recommendations, the discoverer(s) of a new element
has the right to suggest a name. After the discovery of flerovium
and livermorium was recognized by IUPAC on 1 June 2011, IUPAC asked
the discovery team at the JINR to suggest permanent names for those two
elements. The Dubna team chose to name element 114 flerovium (symbol
Fl), after the founder of the Russian institute, Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear
Reactions, the Soviet physicist Georgy Flyorov (also spelled Flerov).
However, IUPAC officially named flerovium after the Flerov Laboratory of
Nuclear Reactions (an older name for the JINR), not after Flyorov
himself. Flyorov is known for writing to Stalin in April 1942 and pointing out
the conspicuous silence in scientific journals within the field of nuclear
fission in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Flyorov deduced
that this research must have become classified information in those
countries. Flyorov's work and urgings led to the eventual development of
theUSSR's own atomic bomb project
Predicted properties
Nuclear stability and isotopes
Chronology of isotope discovery
Isotope Year discovered Discovery reaction
285
Fl 2010
242
Pu(
48
Ca,5n)
286
Fl 2002
249
Cf(
48
Ca,3n)
287a
Fl 2002
244
Pu(
48
Ca,5n)
287b
Fl 1999
242
Pu(
48
Ca,3n)
288
Fl 2002
244
Pu(
48
Ca,4n)
289a
Fl 1999
244
Pu(
48
Ca,3n)
289b
Fl ? 1998
244
Pu(
48
Ca,3n)
Retracted isotopes
285
Fl
In the claimed synthesis of
293
Uuo in 1999, the isotope
285
Fl was identified
as decaying by 11.35 MeV alpha emission with a half-life of 0.58 ms. The
claim was retracted in 2001 after it was discovered that the data has been
fabricated. This isotope was finally created in 2010 and its decay properties
did not match the retracted decay data.
Fission of compound nuclei with an atomic number of 114
Several experiments have been performed between 2000 and 2004 at the
Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna studying the fission
characteristics of the compound nucleus
292
Fl. The nuclear reaction used is
244 48
Pu + Ca
94 20
The results have revealed how nuclei such as this fission predominantly by
expelling closed shell nuclei such as
132
Sn (Z = 50, N = 82). It was also
found that the yield for the fusion-fission pathway was similar between
48
Ca
and
58
Fe projectiles, indicating a possible future use of
58
Fe projectiles in
superheavy element formation.

Nuclear isomerism
289
Fl
In the first claimed synthesis of flerovium, an isotope assigned as
289
Fl
decayed by emitting a 9.71 MeV alpha particle with a lifetime of 30
seconds. This activity was not observed in repetitions of the direct
synthesis of this isotope. However, in a single case from the synthesis
of
293
Lv, a decay chain was measured starting with the emission of a
9.63 MeV alpha particle with a lifetime of 2.7 minutes. All subsequent
decays were very similar to that observed from
289
Fl, presuming that the
parent decay was missed. This strongly suggests that the activity should be
assigned to an isomeric level. The absence of the activity in recent
experiments indicates that the yield of the isomer is ~20% compared to the
supposed ground state and that the observation in the first experiment was
a fortunate (or not as the case history indicates). Further research is
required to resolve these issues.
287
Fl
In a manner similar to those for
289
Fl, first experiments with a
242
Pu target
identified an isotope
287
Fl decaying by emission of a 10.29 MeV alpha
particle with a lifetime of 5.5 seconds. The daughter spontaneously
fissioned with a lifetime in accord with the previous synthesis of
283
Cn. Both
these activities have not been observed since (seecopernicium). However,
the correlation suggests that the results are not random and are possible
due to the formation of isomers whose yield is obviously dependent on
production methods. Further research is required to unravel these
discrepancies.
Decay characteristics
Theoretical estimation of the alpha decay half-lives of the isotopes of the
flerovium supports the experimental data. The fission-survived isotope
298
Fl
is predicted to have alpha decay half-life around 17 days.
In search for the island of stability:
298
Fl
According to macroscopic-microscopic (MM) theory,
[31]
Z = 114 is the next
spherical magic number. This means that such nuclei are spherical in their
ground state and should have high, wide fission barriers to deformation and
hence long SF partial half-lives.
In the region of Z = 114, MM theory indicates that N = 184 is the next
spherical neutron magic number and puts forward the nucleus
298
Fl as a
strong candidate for the next spherical doubly magic nucleus, after
208
Pb
(Z = 82, N = 126).
298
Fl is taken to be at the centre of a hypothetical "island
of stability". However, other calculations using relativistic mean field (RMF)
theory propose Z = 120, 122, and 126 as alternative proton magic numbers
depending upon the chosen set of parameters. It is possible that rather
than a peak at a specific proton shell, there exists a plateau of proton shell
effects from Z = 114126.
It should be noted that calculations suggest that the minimum of the shell-
correction energy and hence the highest fission barrier exists for
297
Uup,
caused by pairing effects. Due to the expected high fission barriers, any
nucleus within this island of stability exclusively decays by alpha-particle
emission and, as such, the nucleus with the longest half-life is predicted to
be
298
Fl. The expected half-life is unlikely to reach values higher than about
10 minutes, unless the N = 184 neutron shell proves to be more stabilising
than predicted, for which there exists some evidence. In addition,
297
Fl may
have an even-longer half-life due to the effect of the odd neutron, creating
transitions between similar Nilsson levels with lower Q

values.
In either case, an island of stability does not represent nuclei with the
longest half-lives, but those that are significantly stabilized against fission
by closed-shell effects.
Evidence for Z = 114 closed proton shell
While evidence for closed neutron shells can be deemed directly from the
systematic variation of Q

values for ground-state to ground-state

transitions, evidence for closed proton shells comes from (partial)
spontaneous fission half-lives. Such data can sometimes be difficult to
extract due to low production rates and weak SF branching. In the case
ofZ = 114, evidence for the effect of this proposed closed shell comes from
the comparison between the nuclei pairings
282
Cn (T
SF
1/2 = 0.8 ms)
and
286
Fl (T
SF
1/2 = 130 ms), and
284
Cn (T
SF
= 97 ms) and
288
Fl
(T
SF
> 800 ms). Further evidence would come from the measurement of
partial SF half-lives of nuclei with Z > 114, such
as
290
Lv and
292
Uuo(both N = 174 isotones). The extraction of Z = 114
effects is complicated by the presence of a dominating N = 184 effect in
this region.
Difficulty of synthesis of
298
Fl
The direct synthesis of the nucleus
298
Fl by a fusionevaporation pathway
is impossible since no known combination of target and projectile can
provide 184 neutrons in the compound nucleus.
It has been suggested that such a neutron-rich isotope can be formed by
the quasifission (partial fusion followed by fission) of a massive nucleus.
Such nuclei tend to fission with the formation of isotopes close to the
closed shells Z = 20 / N = 20 (
40
Ca), Z =50 / N = 82 (
132
Sn)
or Z = 82 / N = 126 (
208
Pb/
209
Bi). If Z = 114 does represent a closed shell,
then the hypothetical reaction below may represent a method of synthesis:
204
80Hg + 136
54Xe 298
114Fl + 40
20Ca + 2 1
0n
Recently it has been shown that the multi-nucleon transfer reactions in
collisions of actinide nuclei (such as uranium and curium) might be used
to synthesize the neutron rich superheavy nuclei located at the island of
stability.
It is also possible that
298
Fl can be synthesized by the alpha decay of a
massive nucleus. Such a method would depend highly on the SF
stability of such nuclei, since the alpha half-lives are expected to be very
short. The yields for such reactions will also most likely be extremely
small. One such reaction is:
244
94Pu (96
40Zr,2n) 338
134Utq 298
114Fl + 10 4
2He
Atomic and physical
Flerovium is a member of group 14 in the periodic table,
below carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, and lead. Every previous
group 14 element has four electrons in its valence shell, forming
a valence electron configuration of ns
2
np
2
. In flerovium's case, the
trend will be continued and the valence electron configuration is
predicted to be 7s
2
7p
2
; therefore, flerovium will behave similarly to its
lighter congeners in many respects. However, notable differences
are likely to arise; a largely contributing effect is the spinorbit (SO)
interactionthe mutual interaction between the electrons' motion
and spin. It is especially strong for the superheavy elements,
because their electrons move much faster than in lighter atoms, at
velocities comparable to the speed of light, which is where the
differences arise. In relation to flerovium atoms, it lowers the 7s and
the 7p electron energy levels (stabilizing the corresponding
electrons), but two of the 7p electron energy levels are stabilized
more than the other four. The stabilization of the 7s electrons is
called theinert pair effect, and the effect "tearing" the 7p subshell into
the more stabilized and the less stabilized parts is called subshell
splitting. Computation chemists see the split as a change of the
second (azimuthal) quantum number l from 1 to 1/2 and 3/2 for the
more stabilized and less stabilized parts of the 7p subshell,
respectively. For many theoretical purposes, the valence electron
configuration may be represented to reflect the 7p subshell split as
7s27p21/2. These effects cause flerovium's chemistry to be
somewhat different from that of its lighter neighbours.
Due to the spin-orbit splitting of the 7p subshell being very large in
flerovium, and the fact that both flerovium's filled orbitals in the
seventh shell are stabilized relativistically, the valence electron
configuration of flerovium may be considered to have a completely
filled shell, making flerovium a very noble metal. Consistent with this,
its first ionization energyof 8.539 eV should be the highest in group
14.
This closed-shell electron configuration results in the metallic
bonding in metallic flerovium being much weaker than in the
preceding and following elements; thus, flerovium is expected to
have a low boiling point, and has recently been suggested to be
possibly a gaseous metal. Earlier predictions stated
the melting and boiling points of flerovium to be around 70 C and
150 C, significantly lower than the values for the lighter group 14
elements (those of lead are 327 C and 1749 C respectively), and
continuing the trend of decreasing boiling points down the group. In
the solid state, flerovium is expected to be a dense metal, with a
density variously predicted to be either 22 gcm
3
or 14 gcm
3
. The
electron of the hydrogen-like flerovium atom (oxidized so that it only
has one electron, Fl
113+
) is expected to move so fast that it has a
mass 1.79 times that of a stationary electron, due to relativistic
effects. For comparison, the figures for hydrogen-like lead and tin are
expected to be 1.25 and 1.073 respectively. Flerovium would form
weaker metalmetal bonds than lead and would be adsorbed less on
surfaces.
Chemical
Flerovium is projected to be the second member of the 7p series of
chemical elements and the heaviest known member of group 14 in
the periodic table, below lead. The first five members of this group
show the group oxidation state of +4 and the latter members have an
increasingly prominent +2 chemistry due to the onset of the inert pair
effect. Tin represents the point at which the stability of the +2 and +4
states are similar, and lead(II) is the most stable of all the chemically
well-understood group 14 elements in the +2 oxidation state. The 7s
orbitals are very highly stabilized in flerovium and thus a very large
sp
3
orbital hybridization is required to achieve the +4 oxidation state;
thus flerovium is expected to be even more stable than lead in its
strongly predominant +2 oxidation state and its +4 oxidation state
should be highly unstable.
For example, flerovium dioxide (FlO
2
) is expected to be highly
unstable to decomposition into its constituent elements (and indeed
would not be formed from the direct reaction of flerovium with
oxygen), while flerovane (FlH
4
) is predicted to be much more
thermodynamically unstable than plumbane, spontaneously
decomposing into flerovium(II) hydride (FlH
2
) and hydrogen gas. The
only stable flerovium(IV) compound is expected to be the fluoride,
FlF
4
, and even this may be due to sd hybridizations rather
than sp
3
hybridization.
The corresponding polyfluoride anion FlF2
6 should be unstable to hydrolysis in aqueous solution, and
flerovium(II) polyhalide anions such as FlBr
3 and FlI3 are predicted to form preferentially in flerovium-
containing solutions. Due to the relativistic stabilization of flerovium's
7s
2
7p21/2 valence electron configuration, the 0 oxidation state
should also be more stable for flerovium than for lead, as the
7p
1/2
electrons begin to also exhibit a mild inert pair effect: this
stabilization of the neutral state may bring about some similarities
between the behaviour of flerovium and the noble
gas radon. Flerovium(IV) should be even more electronegative than
lead(IV); lead(IV) has electronegativity 2.33 on the Pauling scale,
while the lead(II) value is only 1.87. Flerovium(II) should be much
more stable than lead(II), and polyhalide ions and compounds of
typesFlX
+
,FlX
2
, FlX3,
and FlX24 (X = Cl, Br, I) are expected to form readily. Fluorine
would be able to also form the unstable flerovium(IV) analogues. All
the flerovium dihalides are expected to be stable, with the difluoride
being water-soluble, while spin-orbit effects would destabilize
flerovium dihydride (FlH
2
) by almost 2.6 eV.
In solution, flerovium would also form the oxoanion flerovite (FlO2
2) in aqueous solution, analogous toplumbite. Flerovium(II) sulfate
(FlSO
4
) and sulfide (FlS) should be very insoluble in water, while
flerovium(II) acetate (FlC
2
H
3
O
2
) and nitrate (Fl(NO
3
)
2
) should be quite
water-soluble. The standard electrode potential for the reduction of
Fl
2+
ions to metallic flerovium is estimated to be around +0.9 eV,
confirming the increased stability of flerovium in the neutral state. In
general, due to the relativistic stabilization of the 7p
1/2
spinor, Fl
2+
is
expected to have properties intermediate between those
of Hg
2+
or Cd
2+
and its actual lighter congener Pb
2+
.
Experimental chemistry
Two experiments were performed in AprilMay 2007 in a joint FLNR-
PSI collaboration aiming to study the chemistry of copernicium. The
first experiment involved the reaction
242
Pu(
48
Ca,3n)
287
Fl and the
second the reaction
244
Pu(
48
Ca,4n)
288
Fl. The adsorption properties of
the resultant atoms on a gold surface were compared with those of
the noble gas radon, as it was then expected that copernicium's full-
shell electron configuration would lead to noble-gas like
behaviour. Noble gases interact with metal surfaces very weakly,
which is uncharacteristic of metals.
The first experiment allowed detection of three atoms of
283
Cn but
also seemingly detected 1 atom of
287
Fl. This result was a surprise
given the transport time of the product atoms is ~2 s, so flerovium
atoms should decay before adsorption. In the second reaction, 2
atoms of
288
Fl and possibly 1 atom of
289
Fl were detected. Two of the
three atoms portrayed adsorption characteristics associated with a
volatile, noble-gas-like element, which has been suggested but is not
predicted by more recent calculations. These experiments did
however provide independent confirmation for the discovery of
copernicium, flerovium, and livermorium via comparison with
published decay data. Further experiments in 2008 to confirm this
important result detected a single atom of
289
Fl, which provided data
that agreed with previous data that supported flerovium having a
noble-gas-like interaction with gold.
The experimental support for a noble-gas-like flerovium was soon to
weaken abruptly, however. In 2009 and 2010, the FLNR-PSI
collaboration synthesized further atoms of flerovium to follow up their
2007 and 2008 studies. In particular, the first three flerovium atoms
synthesized in the 2010 study suggested again a noble-gas-like
character, but the complete set taken together resulted in a more
ambiguous interpretation. In their paper, the scientists refrained from
calling flerovium's chemical properties "close to those of noble
gases", as had previously been done in the 2008 study. Flerovium's
volatility was again measured through interactions with a gold
surface, and provided indications that the volatility of flerovium was
comparable to that of mercury, astatine, and the simultaneously
investigated copernicium, which had been shown in the study to be a
very volatile noble metal, conforming to its being the heaviest group
12 element known. Nevertheless, it was pointed out that this volatile
behaviour was not expected for a usual group 14 metal.
In even later experiments from 2012, the chemical properties of
flerovium were revealed to be more and more metallic than noble-
gas-like. Jens Volker Kratz and Christoph Dllmann specifically
named copernicium and flerovium as belonging to a new category of
"volatile metals"; Kratz even speculated that they might be gaseous
at standard temperature and pressure. These "volatile metals", as a
category, were expected to fall somewhat in between normal metals
and noble gases in terms of absorption properties. Contrary to the
2009 and 2010 results, it was shown in the 2012 experiments that
the interactions of flerovium and copernicium respectively with gold
were about equal. Further studies in fact showed that flerovium was
in reality more reactive than copernicium, in exact contradiction to
previous experiments and predictions.


Livermore and Russian scientists propose new names
for elements 114 and 116
DATA ZONE
Classification:
Flerovium is an other metal
(presumed)
Atomic weight: (289)
State: solid (presumed)
Melting point:

Boiling point:

Density @ 20
o
C:

Electrons: 114
Protons: 114
Neutrons in most abundant
isotope:
175
Electron shells: 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, 4
Electron configuration: [Rn] 5f
14
6d
10
7s
2
7p
2


Flerovium


Discovery
date
1999
Discovered
by
Scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna,
Russia and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
California, USA.
Origin of the
name
Named after the Russian physicist Georgy Flerov who founded the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research where the element was
discovered.
Allotropes


Fact Box

Group 14 Melting point Unknown
Period 7 Boiling point Unknown
Block p Density (kg m
-3
) Unknown
Atomic number 114 Relative atomic [289]
mass
State at room
temperature
Solid Key isotopes
289
Fl
Electron
configuration
[Rn]
5f
14
6d
10
7s
2
7p
2

CAS number 54085-16-4
ChemSpider ID -
ChemSpider is a free chemical
structure database

The Element Flerovium
[Click for Isotope Data]
114
Fl
Flerovium
289
Atomic Number: 114
Atomic Weight: 289
Melting Point: Unknown
Boiling Point: Unknown
Density: Unknown
Phase at Room Temperature: Expected to be a Solid
Element Classification: Metal
Period Number: 7 Group Number: 14 Group Name: none
Radioactive and Artificially Produced
What's in a name? Named in honor of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.
Say what? Flerovium is pronounced as flee-ROVE-ee-em.
History and Uses:
Flerovium was first produced by scientists working at the Joint Institute for
Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia in 1998. They bombarded atoms
of plutonium with ions of calcium. This produced a single atom of flerovium-
289, an isotope with a half-life of about 21 seconds.
Flerovium's most stable isotope, flerovium-289, has a half-life of about 0.97
seconds. It decays into copernicium-285 throughalpha decay.
Since only a few atoms of flerovium have ever been produced, it currently has
no uses outside of basic scientific research.
Estimated Crustal Abundance: Not Applicable
Estimated Oceanic Abundance: Not Applicable
Number of Stable Isotopes: 0 (View all isotope data)
Ionization Energy: Unknown
Oxidation States: Unknown
Electron Shell Configuration:
(Unconfirmed)
1s
2

2s
2
2p
6

3s
2
3p
6
3d
10

4s
2
4p
6
4d
10
4f
14

5s
2
5p
6
5d
10
5f
14

6s
2
6p
6
6d
10

7s
2
7p
2

This page is maintained by Steve Gagnon.