Flerovium
⚛️ In Your World
Flerovium is a synthetic, superheavy element that has only ever been created a few atoms at a time in particle accelerators. Its most stable known isotope, flerovium-289, has a half-life of about 1.9 seconds. Due to its extreme instability and the fact that only a handful of atoms have ever been made, it has no applications outside of fundamental scientific research. Its only purpose is to help scientists understand the behavior and limits of atomic nuclei, particularly the "island of stability."
📖 The Discovery Story
Flerovium was first synthesized in December 1998 by a team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia, led by Yuri Oganessian. They achieved this by bombarding a target of plutonium-244 with accelerated calcium-48 ions. The element was officially named in 2012 in honor of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at JINR, which itself was named after the Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov (Flerov).
📊 Properties at a Glance
| Phase at STP | Gas (presumed) |
| Melting Point | Unknown |
| Boiling Point | ~210 K (-63 °C, -81 °F) (predicted) |
| Electron Configuration | [Rn] 5f¹⁴6d¹⁰7s²7p² (predicted) |
| Abundance in Earth's Crust | Essentially zero |
⚠️ Safety & Handling
Flerovium is intensely radioactive and extremely hazardous. It has only ever been produced on an atom-by-atom basis. All work with flerovium is conducted in specialized particle accelerator facilities with remote handling to protect researchers from its lethal radiation.