What is chemical Unuquadium?

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Ununquadium is a man-made radioactive chemical element. The element was temporarily recognized with the symbol Uuq. It was was first produced in the year 1998 in Dubna, Russia. Leading scientists of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California collaborated to produce the element 114. The team was led by Ken Moody and Yuri Oganessian. Finally, they reported about their invention in the year 1999. 

How was Ununquadium invented?

Nuclear physiscists of Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory conceptualized and produced the element Ununquadium by fusing two elements from the periodic table. They fused atoms of Calcium (atomic number 20) with Plutonium (atomic number 94) by nuclear bombardment. Calcium ions were transformed into a beam of particles by an accelerator called "U400 cyclotron". Plutonium atoms was the target and Calcium beams were accelerated to reach 10% the speed of light before they strike the Plutonium surface. This was an experiment that was carried out for almost 6 months. For approximately 40 days, 5x10^18 number of Calcium ions were bombarded on the Plutonium ions. This gave birth to a single atom of Ununquadium with atomic weight 289. The team at Dubna found out that the element existed for just 30.4 seconds before it started decaying. In the later stage, two atoms of the same element were prepared which had an atomic weight of 288. The half life of these two atoms was approximately estimated to be 2 seconds. The overall reaction is,

^244₉₄Pu + ⁴⁸₂₀Ca → ²⁹²₁₁₄Uuq*→²⁸⁹₁₁₄Uuq+ 3¹₀n

What is the electronic configuration of Ununquadium?

Oxidation states: Ununquadium is placed in group 14 of the periodic table. It has two oxidation states: +2 and +4. The electronic configuration of the element is 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p2. Since it is not a light element the outer 3 p orbital exhibits different symmetries. All decays have been assigned to the five neighboring isotopes with mass numbers 285–289. The 7p1/2 subshell has influence on the chemical properties of Ununquadium. The spin orbit splitting between the distorted 7p3/2 orbital and spherical 7p1/2 orbital indicated that Ununquadium is most likely to show a behavior ranging from that of a noble gas to lead metal. The initial experiment results showed that it is most likely to behave like a noble gas.

What are the Chemical properties of Ununquadium?

Ununquadium reacts with oxygen to form a monoxide (UuqO). Moreover, it reacts with fluorine, chlorine, bromine to form UuqF2, UuqCl2 and UuqBr2 respectively. In case, +IV state is activated, Ununquadium is likely to form UuqO2, and UuqF4. Ununquadium may also show a mixed oxide, Uuq3O4 which is analogous to Pb3O4.

What is Flevorium?

Ununquadium was accepted in the IUPAC system element name in June 2011. Now, the element has been renamed as Flevorium (Fl) after George Flerov, renowned Russian physicist who was the founder of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia.

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