In the 1960s, small amounts of rutherfordium were produced at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the Soviet Union and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

[22] The definition by the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party (JWP) states that a chemical element can only be recognized as discovered if a nucleus of it has not decayed within 10−14 seconds.

This value was chosen as an estimate of how long it takes a nucleus to acquire electrons and thus display its chemical properties.

However, its range is very short; as nuclei become larger, its influence on the outermost nucleons (protons and neutrons) weakens.

[j] Rutherfordium was reportedly first detected in 1964 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna (Soviet Union at the time).

Researchers there bombarded a plutonium-242 target with neon-22 ions; a spontaneous fission activity with half-life 0.3 ± 0.1 seconds was detected and assigned to 260104.

The team identified spontaneous fission activity contained within a volatile chloride portraying eka-hafnium properties.

[54] In 1969, researchers at University of California, Berkeley conclusively synthesized the element by bombarding a californium-249 target with carbon-12 ions and measured the alpha decay of 257104, correlated with the daughter decay of nobelium-253:[55] They were unable to confirm the 0.3-second half-life for 260104, and instead found a 10–30 millisecond half-life for this isotope, agreeing with the modern value of 21 milliseconds.

[56] The American synthesis was independently confirmed in 1973 and secured the identification of rutherfordium as the parent by the observation of K-alpha X-rays in the elemental signature of the 257104 decay product, nobelium-253.

The Americans, however, proposed rutherfordium (Rf) for the new element to honor New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, who is known as the "father" of nuclear physics.

In particular, this involved the TWG performing a new retrospective reanalysis of the Russian work in the face of the later-discovered fact that there is no 0.3-second isotope of element 104: they reinterpreted the Dubna results as having been caused by a spontaneous fission branch of 259104.

The TWG responded by saying that this was not the case and having assessed each point raised by the American group said that they found no reason to alter their conclusion regarding priority of discovery.

Secondly, elements 104 and 105 were given names favored by JINR, despite earlier recognition of LBL as an equal co-discoverer for both of them.

Several radioactive isotopes have been synthesized in the laboratory, either by fusing two atoms or by observing the decay of heavier elements.

Calculations on its ionization potentials, atomic radius, as well as radii, orbital energies, and ground levels of its ionized states are similar to that of hafnium and very different from that of lead.

Therefore, it was concluded that rutherfordium's basic properties will resemble those of other group 4 elements, below titanium, zirconium, and hafnium.

[2] The standard reduction potential of the Rf4+/Rf couple is predicted to be higher than −1.7 V.[73] Initial predictions of the chemical properties of rutherfordium were based on calculations which indicated that the relativistic effects on the electron shell might be strong enough that the 7p orbitals would have a lower energy level than the 6d orbitals, giving it a valence electron configuration of 6d1 7s2 7p1 or even 7s2 7p2, therefore making the element behave more like lead than hafnium.

In an analogous manner to zirconium and hafnium, rutherfordium is projected to form a very stable, refractory oxide, RfO2.

[72] Rutherfordium is expected to be a solid under normal conditions and have a hexagonal close-packed crystal structure (c/a = 1.61), similar to its lighter congener hafnium.

[77] Early work on the study of the chemistry of rutherfordium focused on gas thermochromatography and measurement of relative deposition temperature adsorption curves.

[78] The experiments relied on the expectation that rutherfordium would be a 6d element in group 4 and should therefore form a volatile molecular tetrachloride, that would be tetrahedral in shape.

[2] A series of experiments confirmed that rutherfordium behaves as a typical member of group 4, forming a tetravalent chloride (RfCl4) and bromide (RfBr4) as well as an oxychloride (RfOCl2).

A decreased volatility was observed for RfCl4 when potassium chloride is provided as the solid phase instead of gas, highly indicative of the formation of nonvolatile K2RfCl6 mixed salt.

[71][72][81] Rutherfordium is expected to have the electron configuration [Rn]5f14 6d2 7s2 and therefore behave as the heavier homologue of hafnium in group 4 of the periodic table.

[72] The most conclusive aqueous chemistry studies of rutherfordium have been performed by the Japanese team at Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute using the isotope 261mRf.

A comparison with its lighter homologues placed rutherfordium firmly in group 4 and indicated the formation of a hexachlororutherfordate complex in chloride solutions, in a manner similar to hafnium and zirconium.

This result is in agreement with predictions, which expect rutherfordium complexes to be less stable than those of zirconium and hafnium because of a smaller ionic contribution to the bonding.

[83] Coprecipitation experiments performed in 2021 studied rutherfordium's behaviour in basic solution containing ammonia or sodium hydroxide, using zirconium, hafnium, and thorium as comparisons.