Nobelium

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102

Nobelium

Atomic Mass	259
Electron Configuration	[Rn]7s25f14
Oxidation States	1S0
Year Discovered	1957

102

Nobelium

Atomic Mass	259
Electron Configuration	[Rn]7s25f14
Oxidation States	1S0
Year Discovered	1957

Identifiers

Element Name	Nobelium
Element Symbol	No
InChI	InChI=1S/No
InChIKey	ORQBXQOJMQIAOY-UHFFFAOYSA-N

Properties

Atomic Weight	259 259 Relative Mass: 259.10103(11#)
Electron Configuration	[Rn]7s²5f¹⁴
Oxidation States	+3, +2 2, 3
Ground Level	¹S₀
Ionization Energy	6.65 eV 6.62621 ± 0.00005 eV
Electronegativity	Pauling Scale Electronegativity : 1.3(Pauling Scale)
Atomic Spectra	Levels Holdings
Physical Description	Solid
Element Classification	Metal
Element Period Number	7
Element Group Number	- Actinide
Melting Point	1100 K (827°C or 1520°F) 827°C
Estimated Crustal Abundance	Not Applicable
Estimated Oceanic Abundance	Not Applicable

History

In 1957, a group of scientists working at the Nobel Institute of Physics in Stockhlom, Sweden, announced the discovery of a new element. They produced this new element, which they named nobelium, by bombarding a target of curium-244 with ions of carbon-13 with a device called a cyclotron. The isotope they created had a half-life of 10 minutes. In 1958, another group of scientists, Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, Torbørn Sikkeland and John R. Walton, working at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, attempted to confirm the Nobel Institute's discovery. They were unable to produce any isotope of nobelium with a half-life of 10 minutes, but were able to produce nobelium-254, with a half-life of three seconds, by bombarding curium-246 with carbon-12. A third group, working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, also could not duplicate the Nobel Institute's work but were able to confirm the Berkeley group's work. Credit for discovering nobelium was eventually given to the scientists working at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, who decided to keep the name nobelium. Today, the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory is known as the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Nobelium's most stable isotope, nobelium-259, has a half-life of about 58 minutes. It decays into fermium-255 through alpha decay, into mendelevium-259 through electron capture or through spontaneous fission.

Named after Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite. Nobelium was unambiguously discovered and identified in April 1958 at Berkeley by A. Ghiorso, T. Sikkeland, J.R. Walton, and G.T. Seaborg, who used a new double-recoil technique. A heavy-ion linear accelerator (HILAC) was used to bombard a thin target of curium (95%244Cm and 4.5% 246Cm) with 12C ions to produce 102No according to the 246Cm(12C, 4n) reaction.

In 1957 workers in the United States, Britain, and Sweden announced the discovery of an isotope of element 102 with a 10-minute half-life at 8.5 MeV, as a result of bombarding 244Cm with 13C nuclei. On the basis of this experiment, the name nobelium was assigned and accepted by the Commission on Atomic Weights of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

The acceptance of the name was premature because both Russian and American efforts now completely rule out the possibility of any isotope of Element 102 having a half-life of 10 min in the vicinity of 8.5 MeV. Early work in 1957 on the search for this element, in Russia at the Kurchatov Institute, was marred by the assignment of 8.9 +/- 0.4 MeV alpha radiation with a half-life of 2 to 40 sec, which was too indefinite to support discovery claims.

Confirmatory experiments at Berkeley in 1966 have shown the existence of 254102 with a 55-s half-life, 252102 with a 2.3-s half-life, and 257102 with a 23-s half-life.

Following tradition giving the right to name an element to the discoverer(s), the Berkeley group in 1967, suggested that the hastily given name nobelium along with the symbol No , be retained.

Description

Nobelium does not occur naturally in the Earth’s crust. It was first synthesized in 1966 by Russian scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia under Georgi Flerov. Earlier claims to have synthesized “nobelium” beginning in 1957 were shown to be erroneous. This element was originally named for Alfred Nobel (Fig. IUPAC.102.1), the inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel prizes. The name was later retained because of its widespread use throughout the scientific literature [636], [638]. There are no uses for isotopes of nobelium outside of scientific research.

Fig. IUPAC.102.1: Portrait of Alfred Nobel. (Image Source: Nobel Foundation) [639].

[636] R. J. Silva. “Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, and Lawrencium”, in The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements, L. R. Morss, N. M. Edelstein, J. Fuger (Eds.), Springer, Berlin, Germany (2006).

[638] Los Alamos National Laboratory. Periodic Table of Elements: LANL-Nobelium. Los Alamos National Laboratory (2014), Feb. 25; http://periodic.lanl.gov/102.shtml.

[639] Nobel Foundation, Street Address: Sturegatan 14, P.O. Box 5232, SE-102 45 Stockholm, Sweden, Phone: +46 (0)8 663 27 65. Web: Nobelprize.org.

Nobelium is named after Alfred Nobel.

Compounds

See more information at the Nobelium compound page.

Element Forms

CID	Name	Formula	SMILES	Molecular Weight
24822	nobelium	No	[No]	259.10100

Isotopes

Stable Isotope Count	0
Summary	Ten isotopes are now recognized, one of which 255102 has a half-life of 3 minutes.

Isotope Mass and Abundance

Isotope	Atomic Mass (uncertainty) [u]	Abundance (uncertainty)
²⁵⁹No	259.10103(11#)

Atomic Mass, Half Life, and Decay

Nuclide	Atomic Mass and Uncertainty [u]	Half Life and Uncertainty	Discovery Year	Decay Modes, Intensities and Uncertainties [%]
²⁴⁸No	248.086623 ± 0.000241 [Estimated]	Not-specified <2us	2003	SF ?
²⁴⁹No	249.087802 ± 0.0003 [Estimated]	57 us ± 12	2003	β⁺ ?; α ?
²⁵⁰No	250.087565 ± 0.000215 [Estimated]	5.08 us ± 0.27	2003	SF≈100%; α ?; β⁺ ?
²⁵⁰No^m	250.087565 ± 0.000215 [Estimated]	36.3 us ± 2.3	2001	SF≈100%; IT=?; α ?
²⁵¹No	251.088942 ± 0.000194 [Estimated]	800 ms ± 10	1967	α=83±1.6%; β⁺ ?; SF<0.3%
²⁵¹No^m	251.088942 ± 0.000194 [Estimated]	1.02 s ± 0.03	1997	α=100%
²⁵¹Noⁿ	251.088942 ± 0.000194 [Estimated]	>1.7 us	2006	IT ?
²⁵²No	252.088966070 ± 0.000009975	2.467 s ± 0.016	1967	α=67.6±0.5%; SF=31.3±0.4%; β⁺=1.1±0.3%
²⁵²No^m	252.088966070 ± 0.000009975	109.1 ms ± 2.5	2007	IT=100%
²⁵³No	253.090562780 ± 0.00000742	1.57 m ± 0.02	1967	α=55±0.3%; β⁺ ?; SF ?
²⁵³No^m	253.090562780 ± 0.00000742	30.3 us ± 1.6	1973	α=100%
²⁵³Noⁿ	253.090562780 ± 0.00000742	706 us ± 24	2011	IT=100%
²⁵³No^p	253.090562780 ± 0.00000742	552 us ± 15	2011	IT=100%
²⁵⁴No	254.090954211 ± 0.000010367	51.2 s ± 0.4	1966	α=90±0.1%; β⁺=10±0.1%; SF=0.17±0.2%
²⁵⁴No^m	254.090954211 ± 0.000010367	264.9 ms ± 1.4	1973	IT=100%; SF=0.020±1.2%; α<0.01%
²⁵⁴Noⁿ	254.090954211 ± 0.000010367	184 us ± 3	2006	IT=100%; SF<0.012%
²⁵⁵No	255.093196439 ± 0.000015079	3.52 m ± 0.18	1967	β⁺=70±0.5%; α=30±0.5%
²⁵⁵No^m	255.093196439 ± 0.000015079	1 s [Estimated]		IT ?; α ?
²⁵⁵No^p	255.093196439 ± 0.000015079	>100 ns		IT ?
²⁵⁶No	256.094281912 ± 0.000008103	2.91 s ± 0.05	1963	α=99.45±0.5%; SF=0.55±0.5%; ε ?
²⁵⁷No	257.096884203 ± 0.000006652	24.5 s ± 0.5	1967	α=85±0.8%; β⁺=15±0.8%; SF ?
²⁵⁷No^p	257.096884203 ± 0.000006652	Not-specified
²⁵⁸No	258.098205 ± 0.000107 [Estimated]	1.23 ms ± 0.12	1989	SF≈100%; α ?
²⁵⁹No	259.100998364 ± 0.000006829	58 m ± 5	1973	α=75±0.4%; ε=25±0.4%; SF<10%
²⁶⁰No	260.102641 ± 0.000215 [Estimated]	106 ms ± 8	1985	SF=100%
²⁶¹No	261.105696 ± 0.000215 [Estimated]	3 h [Estimated]		α ?
²⁶²No	262.107463 ± 0.000387 [Estimated]	~5 ms	1988	SF=100%; α ?
²⁶³No	263.110714 ± 0.000526 [Estimated]	20 m [Estimated]		α ?; SF ?
²⁶⁴No	264.112734 ± 0.000634 [Estimated]	1 m [Estimated]		α ?; SF ?

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Nobelium

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Identifiers

Properties

History

Description

Users

Compounds

Element Forms

Isotopes

Isotope Mass and Abundance

Atomic Mass, Half Life, and Decay

Information Sources