Flerovium

Flerovium is a synthetic chemical element also known as eka-lead. It has the symbol Fl and has the atomic number 114. It is a radioactive superheavy element. 

Flerovium does not exist in nature. It is made from a nuclear reaction between plutonium and calcium. The reaction that happens is a fusion reaction.

 Uses 
It currently has no use at the moment as it is being researched right now.

 History 
The discovery of Flerovium in December 1998 was reported in January 1999 by scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia. The same team of scientists made another isotope of Fl three months later and made it again in 2004 and 2006.

In 2004 in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research checked it was made by another method.  They found the final products of radioactive decay.

After its discovery, the "new" element was named ununquadium. The named changed on May 30th, 2012 to "flerovium". It was named for the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, which was named for Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry named it so.

 Chemical properties 
Not enough Flerovium has been made to measure its physical or chemical properties.  It is thought that it would be a soft, dense metal that changes colour in air.  It may have a low melting point of about 200 °C.

 Making it 
Flerovium can be made by bombarding a plutonium-244 target with calcium-48 as a beam of ions.

 298Fl - An undiscovered neutron-rich nucleus 
According to the nuclear shell model, the undiscovered neutron-rich nucleus 298Fl may be a doubly magic nucleus, atop the shell closure at N=184. It is predicted that this atom, amid the closed nuclear shells, expected to have longer half-lives for alpha decay and spontaneous fission. However using the fusion-evaporation method to produce this nuclide is impractical, since more neutron-rich starting materials with low proton numbers are unstable due to beta decay.

Estimates for half-lives for this atom range from a few minutes to several billion years. 
 References 

 Other websites 

 WebElements.com - Uuq
 Apsidium - Flerovium 
 First postcard from the island of nuclear stability 
 Second postcard from the island of stability 

Category:Post-transition metals
Category:Synthetic elements
Category:Group 14 elements
Category:Transactinides