Cerium (Ce)
Cerium is the 58th element, a lanthanide in the f-block. Its standard atomic weight is 140.116.
Cerium
140.116
What the table records
- Atomic number
- 58
- Standard atomic weight
- 140.116
- Group
- Period
- 6
- Block
- f-block
- Category
- Lanthanide
- [Xe] 4f1 5d1 6s2
- Valence electrons
- 4
- Typical valence
- Van der Waals radius
- 2.48 Å
- Covalent radius
- 2.04 Å
Molecules containing cerium
The lightest named structures in this library that contain Ce.
How to read these numbers
The standard atomic weight is an average over the isotopes as they occur naturally, which is why it is rarely a whole number. It is the figure a molar mass calculation uses. Work in mass spectrometry wants the monoisotopic mass of a single isotope instead, which is a different number.
The two radii are not the same measurement. The covalent radius is half the distance between two bonded atoms of the element; the van der Waals radius is how close a non-bonded atom gets before repulsion takes over, and is always the larger. Space-filling models are drawn with the second, ball-and-stick models with the first — which is why the same molecule looks so different in the two.