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#1 Today 17:32:14

Jai Ganesh
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Registered: 2005-06-28
Posts: 52,142

Rutherfordium

Rutherfordium

Gist

Rutherfordium (Rf) is a synthetic, highly radioactive chemical element with atomic number 104, found in group 4 of the periodic table. It does not occur naturally and must be created in a laboratory through nuclear reactions in particle accelerators. Named after physicist Ernest Rutherford, its properties are difficult to study because it has a very short half-life, with the most stable known isotope 267Rf lasting about 48 minutes.

Because rutherfordium is made within the lab, there are not very many uses for this element commercially. On the other hand, rutherfordium has been used within the laboratory setting to conduct research. Most elements that are highly radioactive are used for nuclear power and medicinal purposes. 

Summary

Rutherfordium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Rf and atomic number 104. It is named after physicist Ernest Rutherford. As a synthetic element, it is not found in nature and can only be made in a particle accelerator. It is radioactive; the most stable known isotope, 267Rf, has a half-life of about 48 minutes.

In the periodic table, it is a d-block element and the second of the fourth-row transition elements. It is in period 7 and is a group 4 element. Chemistry experiments have confirmed that rutherfordium behaves as the heavier homolog to hafnium in group 4. The chemical properties of rutherfordium are characterized only partly. They compare well with the other group 4 elements, even though some calculations had indicated that the element might show significantly different properties due to relativistic effects.

In the 1960s, small amounts of rutherfordium were produced at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the Soviet Union and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Priority of discovery and hence the name of the element was disputed between Soviet and American scientists, and it was not until 1997 that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) established rutherfordium as the official name of the element.

Details

Rutherfordium (Rf) is an artificially produced radioactive transuranium element in Group IVb of the periodic table, atomic number 104. Soviet scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, Russia, U.S.S.R., announced in 1964 the discovery of element 104, which they named kurchatovium, symbol Ku (for Igor Kurchatov, a Soviet nuclear physicist). In 1969, a group of American researchers at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley announced that they had identified isotopes of the element, different from the one identified by the Soviets; the Americans then proposed the name rutherfordium, in honour of the British physicist Ernest Rutherford.

In their experiment, the Soviets bombarded plutonium-242 with ions of neon-22, claiming to have obtained an isotope of element 104 that had a mass number of 260 and a half-life of 0.3 second. The Soviets then performed a series of chemical experiments with the isotope to demonstrate that it behaved in a manner that had been predicted for the element. When the workers at Dubna later used a more refined measuring technique, however, they found that the half-life of the isotope was 0.1 second, not 0.3 second as originally reported. This finding cast doubt on the chemical experiments with the element, because the results of those experiments could not have been obtained with atoms having a half-life of 0.1 second.

The American investigators did not follow the same procedure as the Dubna group, because the American equipment could not accelerate neon-22 ions to the necessary energies. Instead, they bombarded a target of californium-249 with ions of carbon-12 and carbon-13. Although unable to obtain the same isotope as the Soviet scientists, the Berkeley team did report positive identification of two, possibly three, isotopes of element 104. The bombardment of californium-249 with carbon-12 produced an isotope with a mass number of 257 and a half-life of 4–5 seconds; the carbon-13 bombardment produced an isotope with a mass number of 259 and a half-life of three to four seconds. The investigators at Berkeley subsequently, by bombarding curium-248 with oxygen-18, synthesized an isotope of element 104 that has a mass number of 261 and a half-life of 70 seconds.

Although the Soviets could make only a few atoms of their mass-260 isotope, the Berkeley group obtained thousands of the atoms having mass numbers of 257 and 259. Moreover, because the latter isotopes have longer half-lives, the Berkeley team was able to measure the energies of their emissions (alpha particles) and to detect their decay products (nobelium isotopes), thereby providing more extensive evidence of their discovery. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry eventually ruled that element 104 be named rutherfordium.

Element Properties

atomic number  :  104
mass of most stable isotope  :  261.

Additional Information:

Appearance

A radioactive metal that does not occur naturally. Relatively few atoms have ever been made.

Uses

At present, it is only used in research.

Biological role

Rutherfordium has no known biological role.

Natural abundance

Rutherfordium is a transuranium element. It is created by bombarding californium-249 with carbon-12 nuclei.

Rutherfordium-Electron-Configuration.png


It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

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