Lawrencium

Ernest Lawrence, the man that lawrencium is named after

Lawrencium is a synthetic, radioactive chemical element with the symbol Lr and atomic number 103.

History

Before being officially named, it was known as eka-lutetium and unniltrium. Discovered by Albert Ghiorso and co-workers in California in 1961, it was named after Ernest O. Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a research instrument with which several new elements have been discovered. It was long debated if Lutetium and Lawrencium were part of the Yttrium group or the Boron group.

Chemistry

It is a group 3 element and transition metal, but is also often counted as an actinide. Studies on the element, performed in 1969, showed that lawrencium reacts with chlorine to form a product that was most likely the trichloride, LrCl3.

Not much else is known about it as the isotope that has the longest half-life (262Lr) has a half life of about 3.6 hours, so there are no uses for Lawrencium.

References

  1. ↑ Scerri, Eric (2021). "Provisional Report on Discussions on Group 3 of the Periodic Table". Chemistry International. 43: 31–34. doi:10.1515/ci-2021-0115.