Element identity
Element identity and isotope/decay evidence are experimental/evaluated.
Atomic / electronic interpretation
Electronic structure is theory-led and strongly relativistic; visual orbitals are qualitative teaching models.
Bulk material properties
No defensible measured macroscopic density, melting point, boiling point or ordinary crystal structure is presented.
Temperature / phase path
No fake solid–liquid–gas boundaries are added simply to make the interface look complete.
Geography
Research/discovery geography is used instead of a natural-resource map.
The lens describes evidence status, not confidence theatre. “Unknown” is kept unknown, and teaching schematics are not presented as direct measurements.
Flerovium (Fl)
Flerovium is a synthetic superheavy Group 14 element studied one atom at a time. Its identity and nuclear decays are experimental facts; most ordinary bulk properties remain unknown because no macroscopic sample has ever existed.
Flerovium atomic number, isotope mass, configuration and evidence level
Flerovium: quick answers
How many protons, neutrons and electrons does flerovium have?
Flerovium’s atomic number is 114, so every flerovium atom has 114 protons, and a neutral atom also has 114 electrons. Flerovium has no stable isotopes, so the number of neutrons depends on which isotope you mean.
What is the symbol for flerovium?
The chemical symbol for flerovium is Fl.
Is flerovium a solid, liquid or gas at room temperature?
Flerovium has only been made a few atoms at a time, so its state at room temperature is unknown.
What family (group) is flerovium in?
Flerovium is a post-transition metal (predicted), in group 14, period 7 of the periodic table.
What is the electron configuration of flerovium?
The ground-state electron configuration of flerovium is [Rn] 5f¹⁴ 6d¹⁰ 7s² 7p². This is a predicted configuration; it has not been measured.
From atomic number to chemistry
Read these as a chain of causes, not as isolated facts. Each step links to the concept hub if you want the underlying idea explained.
One hundred fourteen protons define flerovium even though only tiny numbers of nuclei have been made.
The nominal Group 14 configuration is strongly reshaped by relativistic effects.
Flerovium lies below lead, but simple downward extrapolation is unreliable.
Decay chains and atom-at-a-time chemistry carry much more weight than bulk-property measurements.
Flerovium sits below lead in Group 14
Atomic number 114 places Flerovium in Period 7, Group 14. It is below lead, but experiments and relativistic calculations show that simple “heavier lead” extrapolation is not enough.
Flerovium Visual Lab
Decode the Fl tile, rotate a ²⁸⁹Fl educational nucleus, inspect the 114-electron shell count, explore 7s/7p teaching shapes and connect the element to real single-atom chemistry.
Seven fields — with different evidence strength
Flerovium in one minute
Element 114. Proton number, not lifetime, defines the element.
Group 14. It lies below lead but is unusually volatile and weakly reactive.
Single-atom chemistry exists. Flerovium atoms have been studied on gold and silicon-oxide surfaces.
²⁸⁹Fl lasts seconds, not years. Its evaluated half-life is about 2.1 seconds.
Bulk values remain unknown. No ordinary sample exists for density, melting or crystal tests.
2 · 8 · 18 · 32 · 32 · 18 · 4 electrons
At Z = 114, relativistic and spin-orbit effects strongly affect the outer 7s and 7p electrons. Modern chemistry therefore needs relativistic calculations and atom-at-a-time experiments.
Alpha decay changes both atomic number and mass number
⁴He nucleus emitted
Emitting an alpha particle removes two protons and two neutrons. A ²⁸⁹Fl alpha decay therefore produces a mass-285 daughter with atomic number 112, copernicium.
Flerovium: no measured macroscopic crystal lattice
Relativity matters at very high nuclear charge
The 7s view is a qualitative shape. In flerovium, relativistic effects alter outer-electron energies and radial distributions.
Experiments on only a few atoms indicate that Flerovium is highly volatile and the least reactive member of Group 14, while still showing metallic interaction with gold. The evidence is sparse, so the page keeps the conclusion appropriately qualified.
What is Flerovium actually useful for?
It has no practical material use. Its value is as a test of nuclear stability, atom-at-a-time chemistry and relativistic periodic trends.
Why is Flerovium unusually volatile for a Group 14 element?
Lead suggests a heavy metal
Flerovium is below lead, so a simple periodic extrapolation might suggest strongly metallic behavior.
Single-atom experiments show a weakly reactive volatile metal
Gas-solid chromatography experiments on gold surfaces found Flerovium less reactive than lead and mercury. Later work supports unusually high volatility and very low Group 14 reactivity, while still indicating metallic interaction.
Inorganic Chemistry 2014 · Frontiers in Chemistry 2022Tin, lead and flerovium: where extrapolation becomes uncertain
Flerovium sits below lead in Group 14, but the superheavy regime makes direct downward extrapolation unreliable. Relativistic effects strongly reshape the outer-electron energies and the experimental evidence comes from only a few atoms.
| Evidence | Measured bulk metal |
|---|---|
| Valence pattern | 5s² 5p² |
| Evidence | Measured bulk metal |
|---|---|
| Valence pattern | 6s² 6p² |
| Evidence | Atom-at-a-time evidence |
|---|---|
| Valence pattern | 7s² 7p² · strong relativistic regime |
Flerovium physical, atomic and nuclear properties
Flerovium has no experimentally established bulk phase path
Unlike ordinary elements, Flerovium has no measured melting or boiling point. The control below teaches what the evidence permits at a chosen temperature without inventing phase boundaries.
At 293 K, reference tables may list Flerovium as solid, but no macroscopic sample has been measured.
RSC lists the melting point and boiling point as unknown. This explorer therefore does not draw invented transition bands.Where on Earth was Flerovium made and studied?
There are no Flerovium mines or natural deposits to map. The geographic story is the Dubna–Livermore research collaboration and single-atom experiments.
From a few decay events to Flerovium
First reported atom
A JINR team produced a Flerovium nucleus by bombarding plutonium with calcium ions.
Evidence strengthened
Additional synthesis and decay observations built the discovery case and enabled chemical studies on very small numbers of atoms.
Discovery credit recognized
IUPAC/IUPAP accepted the discovery claim for element 114 from the Dubna–Livermore collaboration.
Flerovium (Fl) approved
IUPAC approved the name Flerovium, honoring the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.
How can scientists study atoms that live for only seconds?
Superheavy-element experiments make nuclei in rare fusion reactions, separate reaction products and identify them through decay plus atom-at-a-time chemistry.
Heavy-ion reaction
Calcium-48 ions are directed at a plutonium-244 target.
Rare fusion
A tiny fraction of collisions can form Flerovium nuclei after neutron evaporation.
Separation
Reaction products are separated from the intense primary beam and background.
Detection
Decay energies/times and, in chemistry experiments, adsorption behavior provide the evidence.
Flerovium isotopes live from milliseconds to seconds
A useful reference isotope
Current evaluated data list a ²⁸⁹Fl half-life of about 2.1 ± 0.6 seconds, with alpha decay dominant. It has no natural abundance.
Do not reduce Flerovium to one mass number
Modern evaluated tables include several isotopes around mass numbers 284–291. Their lifetimes and decay modes differ, and some values remain uncertain because event counts are small.
For an element with no standard atomic weight, brackets indicate a representative isotope mass number rather than a natural isotope-weighted average.
What do we know, infer and leave unknown?
Observed
Synthesis/decay events and extremely sparse atom-at-a-time adsorption behavior.
Evaluated
Isotope masses, half-lives and decay modes compiled from nuclear measurements.
Modeled
Detailed relativistic electronic structure and many hypothetical bulk properties.
Unknown experimentally
Macroscopic density, melting, boiling, crystal structure, tensile/electrical properties and ordinary bulk chemistry.
Flerovium quiz
1. Why is [289] bracketed?
2. Which group contains Flerovium?
3. How many neutrons are in ²⁸⁹Fl?
4. What is ²⁸⁹Fl’s evaluated half-life?
5. What does alpha decay of ²⁸⁹Fl produce?
6. Why are melting and boiling shown as unknown?
Flerovium questions students commonly ask
For a superheavy element, the short answer must be separated from the evidence limit behind it.
Is flerovium a metal?
Short answer: Experiments support a highly volatile, weakly reactive metallic character.
Only a very small number of atoms have been chemically studied, so this classification rests on atom-scale interaction evidence rather than measurements on an ordinary bulk metal sample. Relativistic effects make flerovium less like a simple scaled-up version of lead than its periodic-table position alone might suggest.
Key point: Metallic character can be inferred from atom-scale chemistry even when no macroscopic metal specimen exists.
Is flerovium solid at room temperature?
Short answer: Some reference tables predict or list a solid state, but this is not a direct bulk measurement.
No macroscopic flerovium sample has been produced. Melting point, boiling point and density remain experimentally unknown, so Element Lookup keeps the room-temperature state visibly separated from measured bulk properties.
Key point: Predicted state is not the same as an observed phase diagram.
Why is flerovium less reactive than lead?
Short answer: Strong relativistic effects reshape and stabilize its outer-electron behavior.
At very high nuclear charge, relativistic effects alter orbital energies and polarizability. That changes volatility and surface interactions enough that flerovium cannot be treated as chemically identical to a heavier lead atom.
Key point: Periodic trends remain useful, but relativistic effects become increasingly important in superheavy elements.
How many protons, neutrons and electrons does ²⁸⁹Fl have?
Short answer: 114 protons, 175 neutrons and 114 electrons in a neutral ²⁸⁹Fl atom.
Atomic number 114 fixes the proton count. Subtracting 114 from mass number 289 gives 175 neutrons, and a neutral atom has the same number of electrons as protons.
Key point: Protons define the element; neutrons define the isotope.
Does flerovium occur naturally?
Short answer: No natural terrestrial occurrence is known.
Flerovium has been produced artificially in nuclear-reaction experiments and its known isotopes decay rapidly. A map of natural deposits or mines would therefore be misleading; discovery and research facilities are the meaningful geography.
Key point: Research geography is not natural-resource geography.
Why are some flerovium fields marked unknown?
Short answer: Because no macroscopic flerovium sample exists from which those bulk properties could be measured.
The site distinguishes measured nuclear and atom-scale evidence from theoretical bulk predictions. Leaving density, crystal structure or phase boundaries unknown is more scientifically honest than turning a model estimate into a laboratory-style number.
Key point: Unknown is a scientific result when the measurement does not exist.
Where the Flerovium information comes from
- Royal Society of Chemistry — Flerovium fact box, history and isotope context
- IUPAC — discovery/naming archive for element 114
- PubChem / AMDC–IAEA compiled isotope data — current Flerovium isotope and decay table
- Yakushev et al., Inorganic Chemistry (2014) — gas-solid chromatography and volatile-metal behavior
- Yakushev et al., Frontiers in Chemistry (2022) — adsorption/reactivity of element 114
Questions to ask next about Flerovium
A good element lesson should lead to the next useful question, not end after a list of facts.
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