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The discovery of Rutherfordium in the 1960s was accompanied with a controversial naming debate between the US and Soviet groups who worked on the element. The final name was decided upon in 1997. Rutherfordium is radioactive with the most stable isotope (267Rf) having half life close to just an hour. Production of the element requires very expensive laboratory set-up, and this coupled with the inherent instability of Rutherfordium has left a principal part of its chemistry and physics unexplored. Few experiments indicate Rutherfordium having similar chemistry as other members of group IV in the periodic table. Theoretical calculations have indicated that the element may be more dense than the most dense element known till now (Osmium)! Since no Rutherfordium crystal structures have been determined yet, the 3D visualiser below contains another rather interesting Cobalt structure. This time it is a spectacular 36-nuclear complex of cobalt(II) which can be found in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) with Refcode LAXRAG and publication DOI:10.1016/j.poly.2017.03.056.
More info about the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT) in crystals project:
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