Discovery date : 1965
Discovered by: Georgy Flerov and colleagues and at Dubna, near Moscow, Russia,
and independently by Albert Ghiorso and colleagues at Berkeley, California, USA
Origin of the name: Lawrencium is named after Ernest O. Lawrence the inventor of the cyclotron.
Allotropes :
~>LAWRENCIUM is a synthetic chemical element with symbol Lr and atomic number 103. It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements.
| FACT BOX | |||
| Group | Actinides | Melting point | 1627°C, 2961°F, 1900 K |
| Period | 7 | Boiling point | Unknown |
| Block | f | Density (g cm−3) | Unknown |
| Atomic number | 103 | Relative atomic mass | [262] |
| State at 20°C | Solid | Key isotopes | 262Lr |
| Electron configuration | [Rn] 5f147s27p1 | CAS number | 22537-19-5 |
| ChemSpider ID | 28934 | ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database | |
This element had a controversial history of discovery. In 1958, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) bombarded curium with nitrogen and appeared to get element 103, isotope-257. In 1960, they bombarded californium with boron hoping to get isotope-259 but the results were inconclusive. In 1961, they bombarded curium with boron and claimed isotope-257.
In 1965, the Soviet Union’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) successfully bombarded americium with oxygen and got isotope-256. They also checked the LBL’s work, and claimed it was inaccurate. The LBL then said their product must have been isotope-258. The International Unions of Pure and Applied Chemistry awarded discovery to the LBL.