berkelium

Also known as Bk, element 97, 97Bk

Berkelium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory) where it was discovered in December 1949. Berkelium was the fifth transuranium element discovered after neptunium, plutonium, curium and americium.

OverviewAI-generated

Berkelium is a chemical element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It was discovered in 1949. The element has an electronegativity of 1.3 and an ionic radius of 0.96. Its canonical SMILES representation is [Bk], and it is associated with the Unicode character 鉳.

The substance has a chemical formula of Bk and a molecular weight of 247.07031. It possesses zero hydrogen bond donors and acceptors, with a topological polar surface area of 0 and a charge of 0. In academic literature, the term "berkelium" appears in 36 PubMed records. Additionally, the subject is referenced by 680 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 22 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, PubChem, PubMed, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Chemical data

Formula: Bk
Molecular weight: 247.07031 g/mol
IUPAC name: berkelium
SMILES: [Bk]
InChIKey: PWVKJRSRVJTHTR-UHFFFAOYSA-N
Polar surface area: 0 Å²
H-bond donors: 0
H-bond acceptors: 0
Formal charge: 0

via PubChem

Research

36 papers

Contemporary Chemistry of Berkelium and Californium.ReviewChemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2019White FD, Dan D, Albrecht-Schmitt TEDOI: 10.1002/chem.201900586
Berkelium-carbon bonding in a tetravalent berkelocene.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Russo DR, Gaiser AN, Price AN et al.DOI: 10.1126/science.adr3346
Spectroscopic Characterization of Tetravalent Berkelium.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Woods JJ, Wacker JN, Gunther SO et al.DOI: 10.1002/anie.202513479
Transient Radiation-Induced Berkelium(III) and Californium(III) Redox Chemistry in Aqueous Solution.Inorganic chemistry · 2022Horne GP, Rotermund BM, Grimes TS et al.DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c01106
Peaceful berkelium.Nature chemistry · 2017Trabesinger ADOI: 10.1038/nchem.2845
Chelation and stabilization of berkelium in oxidation state +IV.Nature chemistry · 2017Deblonde GJ, Sturzbecher-Hoehne M, Rupert PB et al.DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2759
Creation of an unexpected plane of enhanced covalency in cerium(III) and berkelium(III) terpyridyl complexes.Nature communications · 2021Gaiser AN, Celis-Barros C, White FD et al.DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27576-y
Electronic Structure and Properties of Berkelium Iodates.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2017Silver MA, Cary SK, Garza AJ et al.DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b05569

via PubMed

~30 min read

Encyclopedic overview

22 sections

Contents

Characteristics
Physical
Allotropes
Chemical
Isotopes
Occurrence
History
Synthesis and extraction
Preparation of isotopes
Separation
Bulk metal preparation
Compounds
Oxides
Halides
Other inorganic compounds
Organoberkelium compounds
Applications
Nuclear fuel cycle
Health issues
References
Bibliography
External links

The major isotope of berkelium, 249Bk, is synthesized in minute quantities in dedicated high-flux nuclear reactors, mainly at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, United States, and at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. The longest-lived and second-most important isotope, 247Bk, can be synthesized via irradiation of 244Cm with high-energy alpha particles.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “berkelium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.