Francium: the essentialsFrancium occurs as a result of α disintegration of actinium. Francium is found in uranium minerals, and can be made artificially by bombarding thorium with protons. It is the most unstable of the first 101 elements. The longest lived isotope, 223Fr, a daughter of 227Ac, has a half-life of 22 minutes. This is the only isotope of francium occurring in nature, but at most there is only 20-30 g of the element present in the earth's crust at any one time. No weighable quantity of the element has been prepared or isolated. There are about 20 known isotopes.
Francium: historical informationFrancium was discovered in 1939 by Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute in Paris, (France) but its existence was predicted by Mendeleev during the 1870's. Since its properties should track those of caesium rather closely, he called it eka-caesium. Marguerite Perey noticed an α decay product from actinium, now recognized as 22387Fr. This is the longest-lived isotope of actinium with a half life of about 22 minutes. She called the new element Francium after her country. Francium: physical properties
Francium: orbital properties
IsolationIsolation: francium is vanishingly rare and is found only as very small traces in some uranium minerals. It has never been isolated as the pure element. As it is so radioactive, any amount formed would decompose to other elements. Actinium decays by β decay most of the time but about 1% of the decay is by α decay. The "daughter" element of this reaction, which used to be called actinium-K, is now recognized as 22387Fr - the longest-lived isotope of actinium with a half life of about 22 minutes. WebElements ShopWebElements now has a WebElements shop at which you can buy periodic table posters, mugs, T-shirts, games, fridge magnets, molecular models, and more.
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Melting point
Boiling point
Density of solid
Pauling electronegativity
First ionisation energy
Second ionisation energy
