All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 116, a superheavy element
Named after Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, a partner in the discovery of five superheavy elements.
Period 7, group 16. The other superheavy elements are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Livermorium has 116 electrons, one for every proton, so the atom carries no charge. Below are the same 116 electrons written two ways.
1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 3d¹⁰ 4s² 4p⁶ 4d¹⁰ 4f¹⁴ 5s² 5p⁶ 5d¹⁰ 5f¹⁴ 6s² 6p⁶ 6d¹⁰ 7s² 7p⁴
Short form: [Rn] 5f¹⁴ 6d¹⁰ 7s² 7p⁴, where [Rn] stands for the 86 electrons radon already has.
That list runs by shell. In the order the subshells fill it reads [Rn] 7s² 5f¹⁴ 6d¹⁰ 7p⁴, because a subshell fills by its energy, not by its shell number.
The simple form counts electrons shell by shell. The orbital form says which subshell each one sits in: s holds 2, p holds 6, d holds 10 and f holds 14. Shell 4 here is 4s² 4p⁶ 4d¹⁰ 4f¹⁴, and 2 + 6 + 10 + 14 is 32.
Livermorium sits in period 7 and has 7 shells. The period number counts the shells.
No one has measured this configuration. Only a few atoms of livermorium have ever existed, so it is predicted from the pattern of the table.
The outer shell holds 6 electrons. Those are the ones livermorium can lose, gain or share, so they are the ones that decide what it bonds with.
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.
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.
A team from Dubna and Lawrence Livermore made it in 2000 by fusing calcium-48 with curium-248. It was named in 2012 after the Livermore laboratory, itself named after the city of Livermore.
Research only.