Period 7 element facts for kids

The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki had a plutonium charge.

A period 7 element is an element in the seventh period (row) of the periodic table. It contains 32 elements, beginning at Francium and ending with Ununoctium. The Actinides are part of this period.

Properties

All elements of period 7 are radioactive. This period contains the actinides, which contains the heaviest naturally occurring element, plutonium; subsequent elements must be synthesized artificially. Whilst the first five of these are now available in macroscopic quantities, most are extremely rare, having only been prepared in microgram amounts or less. The later, transactinide elements have only been identified in laboratories in batches of a few atoms at a time.

Although the rarity of many of these elements means that experimental results are not very extensive, their periodic and group trends are less well defined than other periods. Whilst francium and radium do show typical properties of their respective groups, actinides display a much greater variety of behaviour and oxidation states than the lanthanides. These peculiarities are due to a variety of factors, including a large degree of spin-orbit coupling and relativistic effects, ultimately caused by the very high positive electrical charge from their massive atomic nuclei.

Elements

Chemical element			Chemical series	Electron configuration	Occurrence
87	Fr	Francium	Alkali metal	[Rn] 7s1	From decay
88	Ra	Radium	Alkaline earth metal	[Rn] 7s2	From decay
89	Ac	Actinium	Actinide	[Rn] 6d1 7s2	From decay
90	Th	Thorium	Actinide	[Rn] 6d2 7s2 (*)	Primordial
91	Pa	Protactinium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f2 6d1 7s2	From decay
92	U	Uranium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f3 6d1 7s2	Primordial
93	Np	Neptunium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f4 6d1 7s2	From decay
94	Pu	Plutonium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f6 7s2 (*)	From decay
95	Am	Americium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f7 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
96	Cm	Curium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f7 6d1 7s2	Synthetic
97	Bk	Berkelium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f9 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
98	Cf	Californium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f10 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
99	Es	Einsteinium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f11 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
100	Fm	Fermium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f12 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
101	Md	Mendelevium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f13 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
102	No	Nobelium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f14 7s2 (*)	Synthetic
103	Lr	Lawrencium	Actinide	[Rn] 5f14 7s2 7p1 (*)	Synthetic
104	Rf	Rutherfordium	Transition metal	[Rn] 5f14 6d2 7s2	Synthetic
105	Db	Dubnium	Transition metal	[Rn] 5f14 6d3 7s2	Synthetic
106	Sg	Seaborgium	Transition metal	[Rn] 5f14 6d4 7s2	Synthetic
107	Bh	Bohrium	Transition metal	[Rn] 5f14 6d5 7s2	Synthetic
108	Hs	Hassium	Transition metal	[Rn] 5f14 6d6 7s2	Synthetic
109	Mt	Meitnerium	Transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d7 7s2 (?)	Synthetic
110	Ds	Darmstadtium	Transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d8 7s2 (?)	Synthetic
111	Rg	Roentgenium	Transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d9 7s2 (?)	Synthetic
112	Cn	Copernicium	Post-transition metal	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 (?)	Synthetic
113	Nh	Nihonium	Post-transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p1 (?)	Synthetic
114	Fl	Flerovium	Post-transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p2 (?)	Synthetic
115	Mc	Moscovium	Post-transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p3 (?)	Synthetic
116	Lv	Livermorium	Post-transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p4 (?)	Synthetic
117	Ts	Tennessine	Post-transition metal (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p5 (?)	Synthetic
118	Og	Oganesson	Noble gas (?)	[Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p6 (?)	Synthetic

See also

In Spanish: Elementos del periodo 7 para niños