Lawrencium Facts

One of the very interesting facts about lawrencium is that it is an element which does not exist naturally. Find such facts and uses here in this article.

Lawrencium is an element and is written as Lr as of now (legal from 1997). Prior to this, it was denoted by Lw. Lawrencium is one among the list of radioactive elements. The following are some of the very interesting facts about lawrencium.

Electron Configuration

Electron configuration in Lawrencium is [Rn] 5f¹⁴ 7s² 7p¹ with the atomic number 103 (2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 9, 2). The bracketed numbers show the distribution of electrons in each orbital shell of the lawrencium atom.

This chemical element is placed in the actinides section of the periodic table. The atomic mass of lawrencium is 262 and has a half-life of 3.6 hours.

Physical Properties

• Though there is not any distinctive in the appearance of lawrencium, it is silvery white or grayish in color.
• Lawrencium can be turned into both, gaseous and aqueous phases. The melting point of lawrencium is 1900 Kelvin or 2961F.
• The boiling point of the element is not known however the absolute melting point is 1.9×103 K.
• The density of lawrencium is 9.84 grams per cubic cm.
• The classification of this metal, as mentioned in the above paragraph, is done in the actinides section of the periodic table, which makes it a transition metal. Its electron configuration also proves the same.

It has many isotopes, the heaviest one being ²⁶²Lr. The atom of this isotope is reported to have the longest half-life of 216 minutes. Here’s a list of the isotopes.

Out of these, only ten of the isotopes are reported to be radioactive.

Some more facts:

• Placement: Lawrencium is the last element in the actinide series.
• Discovery: The atom of lawrencium was accidentally produced by bombarding three milligram of the element californium with boron-10 and boron-11 nuclei.
• Inventors: The element is named after the nuclear physicist, Ernest O. Lawrence. Lawrencium was synthesized by nuclear physicists Albert Ghiorso, Almon Larsh, Robert M. Latimer, Torbjorn Sikkeland in California. These physicists were in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California in 1961.
• Radioactive: All the elements in the periodic table that have an atomic number greater than 92 (i.e. the atomic number of Uranium), are radioactive and lawrencium is no exception.
• Problems: Production of considerable amount of lawrencium could lead to radiation issues.
• Availability: Among the very interesting facts about lawrencium is that the element does not exist in the nature! It can only be made artificially.
• Uses: Lawrencium uses are limited as the element is non-existent in nature. Its primary uses are for research work alone.

So these were some of the lawrencium facts, some of which are not very common, and hope it arouses a little interest in chemistry.