Flerovium

At a glance

Symbol

Fl

Atomic number

114

Mass number of its longest-lived isotope

[289]

Group

14

Period

7

Family

superheavy element

Electron configuration

[Rn] 5f¹⁴ 6d¹⁰ 7s² 7p² (predicted)

Electronegativity

not measured

On the table

Period 7, group 14. The other superheavy elements are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.

Electrons and bonding

Only a handful of atoms have ever been made, each lasting seconds or less, so its chemistry is predicted from its place in the table rather than measured.

Properties

State at 25 °C

not known

Physical properties

none measured; no more than a few atoms have ever existed at once

Where it is found

Not found in nature. It is made a few atoms at a time in particle accelerators by fusing lighter nuclei, and each atom decays within seconds to hours.

Discovery and name

Yuri Oganessian's team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, made it in 1998 by fusing calcium-48 with plutonium-244. It was named in 2012 after the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, which honors the physicist Georgy Flerov.