Group 3 Elements

Group 3 Elements consists of Scandium(Sc), Yttrium(Y), Lutetium(Lu), and Lawrencium(Lr). The group is also called the Scandium group.

History

Yttrium was first prepared by Friedrich Wohler in 1828 after heating anhydrous yttrium chloride with potassium to form metallic yttrium and potassium chloride.

Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev had published the modern periodic table which contained an empty space above the element yttrium. Several predictions were made by him on the hypothetical element, which he called eka-boron. The oxide yttria was split several times by then, primarily into terbia and erbia, which were again split. One of the results was ytterbia, which was successfully split by Lars Frendrik Nilson, in 1879, which revealed another new element. This was named scandium. 

French scientist Georges Urbain, Austrian mineralogist Baron Carl von Welsbach, and American chemist Charles James all independently discovered a new element within ytterbia in 1907. This element was named lutetium.

Lawrencium was first synthesized by Albert Ghiorso and his team at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory on February 14, 1961. The initial atoms of lawrencium were produced by bombarding a 3-milligram target consisting of three isotopes of californium with boron-10 and boron-11 nuclei.

The Group 3 Elements

All group 3 elements are soft, silvery-white metals. They quickly react with water, though their reactivity is masked by the formation of an oxide layer. Out of all group 3 elements, lawrencium is strongly radioactive.