Copernicium opens the door to elements 114 and 116…
Posted by Phillip on Thu 2 Jun 2011Categories: new elements , News | [13] Comments
…but elements 113, 115 and 118 will have to wait a little longer to receive their official recognition from the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac).
Both elements have been credited to a collaboration between Yuri Oganessian’s team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and a team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, US.
My guess is that these teams will now have to work out between them what to call the latest additions to the elemental lexicon. I’ll keep my ear to the ground for any official announcements, but in the meantime, has anyone got any suggestions?
Getting a new element onto the periodic table is a slow business – the time between claiming the discovery of it and official recognition is often over 10 years. The work must be reproduced by independent groups, and often verified and shored up by complementary experiments. Then come the official deliberations from Iupac to study all the evidence and claims and decide who should get the honour of the discovery – and with it the chance to decide on a name for the new elements.
For the last few years, a joint working party from Iupac – and its physics counterpart Iupap – has been considering claims for elements heavier than roentgenium (Z=111). The wranglings have appeared several times on this blog - see here for the back-story. In 2009, the evidence for element 112 was judged sufficient for Sigurd Hofmann at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, to name the element copernicium (with the symbol Cn). In a subtle twist, it is this official recognition of 112 that has enabled the claims for elements 114 and 116 to stand up. Since both 114 and 116 decay by emitting alpha particles, they transform into isotopes of copernicium as they do so (116 minus alpha is 114, minus another alpha is 112). Detection of Cn was used to support evidence of their creation.
The Iupac working party also considered claims for elements 113, 115 and 118, but concluded that, while the results were solid and encouraging, they didn’t quite fulfil the criteria for claiming definitive discovery of new elements, so I guess we’ll have to wait a while to see them on the table. In the meantime, have fun dreaming up names for elements 114 and 116!
Phillip Broadwith
Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 3:45 pm
Dear Mr. Broadwith,
I´d like to bring to your attention that 116 minus alpha is 112, as alpha particles are helium nuclei.
Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 4:03 pm
Dear Mr. Broadwith,
please ignore my former comment, clearly Z is the number of proton. I´d better to refresh my nuclear chemistry.
thank you
Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 7:00 pm
Diracium! Dirac deserves more publicity.
Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 8:07 pm
113 Sotirium St
115 Solarium So
118 Terarium T
Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 8:17 pm
116 Demium Dm
114 Fobium Fb
Fri 3 Jun 2011 at 9:03 am
Josip – care to explain your reasoning behind those suggestions?
Sat 4 Jun 2011 at 7:03 am
I actually have element 114 in my Google Alerts because I’ve been anticipating a naming soon. It says they already have names picked for them: 114: “flerovium” in honour of Georgy Flerov, and the element 116 – “moscovium” for Moscow.
Mon 6 Jun 2011 at 10:50 am
According to the Russian national news agency, it looks like Jonah is right http://www.rian.ru/science/20110326/358081075.html
A Google translation of the page gives this quote from Mikhail Itkis, vice-director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna
“We would like element 114 be named after George Flerov – Flerov[ium], and the second – Muscovy [muscovium?], not in honor of Moscow, but in honor of the Moscow region”
Mon 6 Jun 2011 at 11:26 am
That being said, my researches suggest flerovium was already used briefly as a name for element 102 (nobelium), so it may not be eligible…
Mon 6 Jun 2011 at 12:53 pm
although childish i think it my be fun to name them something out of a comic so that when people ask you can say they do exist but not in the way outlined in comics. so i think it should be adamantium and vibronium for elements 114 and 116 respectively
Mon 6 Jun 2011 at 1:56 pm
Perhaps Josip should get a job naming new Pokémon…
Thu 1 Dec 2011 at 3:41 pm
[...] International Year of Chemistry the proposed names for elements 114 and 116, whose discovery was officially ratified in May of this [...]
Wed 4 Apr 2012 at 12:07 am
molecular physics…
[...]Chemistry World blog » Copernicium opens the door to elements 114 and 116…[...]…