Lawrencium Facts
Lawrencium Facts
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| Interesting Lawrencium Facts: |
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| Lawrencium, a member of the rare earth metals, does not actually occur in the environment on Earth. |
| It was discovered on February 14, 1961, by a team of researchers made up of Albert Ghiorso, Almon Larsh, Robert Latimer, and Torbjorn Sikkeland. |
| The team, working at UC Berkley, bombarded three milligrams of californium with boron ions to produce the result. |
| The first experiment with this bombardment used nitrogen bombardment, which resulted in the target of californium being destroyed. |
| The end result was a sample of lawrencium that was only two micrograms. |
| A Russian team was able to synthesize lawrencium in 1965 by bombarding an isotope of americium with an isotope of oxygen. |
| Despite uncertainties over the Berkley team's data, IUPAC declared the discovery to the 1961 team. |
| The element's name was assigned by the researchers, but was not officially designated by the IUPAC until 1997. |
| They chose to name the element after the inventor of the cyclotron, Ernest Lawrence. |
| Lawrencium is a radioactive element, wholly synthesized from other elements. |
| It is the last element found in the actinide series, and is also the heaviest. |
| It is chemically similar to other actinides, and is homologous to lutetium. |
| There are eleven isotopes of lawrencium, and one isomer. |
| All of lawrencium's isotopes are radioactive, and the most stable of its isotopes is Lr-262. |
| Lr-262 only has a half-life of 3.6 hours. |
| Most of the lawrencium isotopes have a half-life of less than one minute. |
| Despite its position on the periodic table which should make lawrencium a transition metal, it is actually an actinide. |
| There are no known commercial uses for lawrencium as it does not occur naturally. |
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