Flerovium is a superheavy artificial chemical element with symbol Fl and atomic number 114. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element. The element is named after the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, where the element was discovered in 1998.
Three reasons Flerovium stands out
- 1
Named after Soviet physicist known for spontaneous fission, crystallography and material science.
- 2
It is predicted to behave chemically more like a noble gas than a typical metal due to extreme relativistic electron effects.
- 3
It was first synthesised in 1999 by a joint team of Russian and American scientists.
A metal that may behave almost like a noble gas
Flerovium honors the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions. It lies below lead, yet relativistic stabilization of its electrons may make it unusually volatile and weakly reactive for a metal. Experiments are difficult to interpret because each atom survives only briefly before radioactive decay.