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What is the Periodic Table Showing? Periodicity

The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables

There are thousands of periodic tables in web space, but this is the only comprehensive database of periodic tables & periodic system formulations. If you know of an interesting periodic table that is missing, please contact the database curator: Mark R. Leach Ph.D.

Use the drop menus below to search & select from the more than 1300 Period Tables in the database: 

  Text Search:       


The 10 Periodic Tables most recently added to the database:

2025   Actinium: The Most Annoying Element for the Rare-Earth Industry?
2025   AI Periodic Table: WARNING!
2025   S Ar Ca Sm: The Elements Required to Deal With Stupidity
1924   Hubbard and His Periodic Table
2025   Cruciform Periodic Table of the Elements
2025   Livengood's Twin Sphere Model
2025   Music, Periodic Table of
2010   元素 (The Elements song in Japanese)
2025   RIP Tom Lehrer (The Elements Song) - Periodic Table of Videos
2025   Hutcheon's Right-Step Periodic Table v3


Year:  2025 PT id = 1345, Type = element

Actinium: The Most Annoying Element for the Rare-Earth Industry?

Koen Binnemans writing on Linkedin:

Actinium: The Most Annoying Element for the Rare Earth Industry?

Rare-earth elements (REEs) are often accompanied by radioactive uranium and thorium in their ores. This is particularly problematic for monazite, which can contain more than 15 wt% thorium dioxide. The REE mineral steenstrupine, which occurs in large quantities in Greenland, is so rich in uranium that it can even be mined as a uranium ore. Due to strict safety regulations governing the handling of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), the thorium content of REE ores poses major challenges for REE producers. Thorium is treated as radioactive waste, and its disposal can be very expensive.

It is important to realize that most radioactivity issues are not caused directly by thorium or uranium themselves, since their primary isotopes (thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238) are all very long?lived, but by their radioactive daughter nuclides formed through decay chains.

Most of these radioactive daughter elements have chemical properties sufficiently different from those of the REEs that they can be removed using conventional hydrometallurgical techniques.

However, actinium presents a particular challenge because its chemical properties are similar to those of the REEs, especially lanthanum. The isotope actinium-227, formed by the decay of uranium-235, has a half-life of 22 years. During REE separation, actinium tends to follow lanthanum. In a solvent-extraction circuit, actinium accumulates in the SX battery along with the lanthanum stream.

Although the concentration of actinium is usually very low, lanthanum must be purified as thoroughly as possible, because one important application of lanthanum is in scintillator detectors for ionizing radiation (e.g. (LaBr3:Ce3+ or LaCl3:Ce3+). If lanthanum is contaminated with radioactive actinium, the resulting detector will exhibit significant background noise and therefore poor performance. Another issue is that REE concentrates produced at mining sites may exceed legal radioactivity limits for export to REE refineries due to the presence of actinium.

Therefore, REE processing companies have developed processes to remove actinium from REE concentrates or feed solutions for SX operations. Limited information is available in the scientific literature, but more can be found in patent documents. For instance, read the following patent of CARESTER, https://lnkd.in/evXsXzDB

It should also be noted that actinium has useful applications: actinium?225 is used in radiopharmaceuticals for the precision treatment of tumors. See: PANTERA

SOLVOMET R&I Centre SIM2 KU Leuven

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Wikipedia) Blue Cerenkov radiation emitted by a sample of actinium-225

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Year:  2025 PT id = 1344, Type = formulation

AI Periodic Table: WARNING!

From Chemistry World:

"While images of the periodic table generated by a range of different AIs appear plausible at first glance, such as this one by Microsoft’s Copilot, a closer look reveals multiple errors. Calls are being made to outlaw the use of AI for drawing chemical structures in journal publications"

Thanks to Prof. Richard Hull for the tip!

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Year:  2025 PT id = 1343, Type = non-chem misc

S Ar Ca Sm: The Elements Required to Deal With Stupidity

S Ar Ca Sm: The Elements Required to Deal With Stupidity

Thanks to Barry for the tip!

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Year:  1924 PT id = 1342, Type = formulation

Hubbard and His Periodic Table

Henry D. Hubbard in front of his 1924 periodic table from wikimedia:


Thanks to Doug Simpson for the tip!

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Year:  2025 PT id = 1341, Type = formulation

Cruciform Periodic Table of the Elements

Don Stenberg, Jr.'s Cruciform Periodic Table of the Elements:

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Year:  2025 PT id = 1340, Type = formulation

Livengood's Twin Sphere Model

Cody Livengood's Twin Sphere model of the atom. Read the full story: Unlocking the Atom: Introducing the Twin Sphere Model on ResearchGate.

Cody writes:

"Quantum mechanics has long described electrons as probabilistic clouds, an approach that, while mathematically sound, often lacks intuitive clarity about the physical arrangement of electrons in atoms. This abstract portrayal is not only difficult to visualize but makes it challenging to understand why electrons form the distinct patterns observed in the periodic table and other chemical principles or how these patterns influence chemical properties. Could there be a simpler, more deterministic way to describe atomic structure? The Twin Sphere Model offers a compelling alternative. By aligning more closely with the periodic table's structure and other empirical data, it provides a clear, geometric framework that has the potential to transform our understanding of matter, chemistry, and physics overall."


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Year:  2025 PT id = 1339, Type = non-chem

Music, Periodic Table of

Even though the author of this image, mycolourmusic.com, do not describe it as a "Periodic Table of Music", we think it fits the bill:

Watch a 60 second video here:

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Year:  2010 PT id = 1338, Type = misc

元素 (The Elements song in Japanese)

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Year:  2025 PT id = 1337, Type = misc

RIP Tom Lehrer (The Elements Song) - Periodic Table of Videos

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Year:  2025 PT id = 1336, Type = formulation review

Hutcheon's Right-Step Periodic Table v3

Scott Hutcheon of College of New Caledonia | University of Victoria | Simon Fraser University has updated his Right-Step Periodic Table formulation, here & here, with a comprehensive RSPT_v3.pdf (click to download).

The images below are from the .pdf document:




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What is the Periodic Table Showing? Periodicity

© Mark R. Leach Ph.D. 1999 –


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