| |||||
| Known properties | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name, Symbol, Number | Meitnerium, 109, Mt | ||||
| Chemical series | Transition metals | ||||
| Group, Period, Block | 9, 7 , d | ||||
| Appearance | unknown; probably metallic, silvery white or gray | ||||
| Atomic weight | [268] amu | ||||
| Electron configuration | probably [Rn] 5f14 6d7 7s2 | ||||
| e- 's per energy level | 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 15, 2 | ||||
| State of matter | Presumably a solid | ||||
Meitnerium is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Mt and atomic number 109. It is a synthetic element whose most stable isotope is Mt-266 with a half-life of 3.4 ms.
History
Meitnerium was first synthesized on August 29, 1982 by a German research team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research at Darmstadt.
The team did this by bombing a target of bismuth-209 with accelerated nuclei of iron-58. The creation of this element demonstrated that nuclear fusion techniques could be used to make new, heavy nuclei.
The name meitnerium was suggested in honor of the Austrian-Swedish physicist and mathematician Lise Meitner, but there was an element naming controversy as to what the elements from 101 to 109 were to be called; thus IUPAC adopted unnilennium (symbol Une) as a temporary, systematic element name. However in 1997 they resolved the dispute and adopted the current name.