Mendelevium is a synthetic element with chemical symbol Md (formerly Mv) and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranic element in the actinide series, it is the first element that currently cannot be produced in macroscopic quantities through neutron bombardment of lighter elements. It is the antepenultimate actinide and the ninth transuranic element.
Three reasons Mendelevium stands out
- 1
Synthetic element, named after the famous Russian chemist who formulated the first periodic table.
- 2
Its discovery involved identifying individual atoms.
- 3
It was the first element to be produced one atom at a time and then chemically identified.
Seventeen atoms and a clear chemical signal
The first mendelevium experiment produced only about seventeen atoms, yet researchers chemically separated their decay products and proved a new element existed. Naming it for Dmitri Mendeleev honored the periodic framework that predicted missing elements long before atom-at-a-time chemistry became possible.