Element 117 reproduced by GSI Helmholtz Centre

[Cylinder]

I could not find a discovery thread to update...

Superheavy element discovered by Livermore team and others inches closer to name

A superheavy element discovered with help from Lawrence Livermore lab scientists is a step closer to being officially named, lab officials said Friday.

Element 117, discovered in 2010 by researchers from Livermore along with an international team, has been confirmed by a second group of scientists at an accelerator lab in Darmstadt, Germany. To create the element, the scientists bombarded a berkelium target with calcium ions.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) will review the findings and decide whether or not to acknowledge the element's discovery. If accepted, IUPAC would then determine which institution can propose names for the element.

The research by the team at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

 

[catsmate]

Excellent! Not for Uus but there's hope for Uup also; finally that irritating gap between flerovium and livermorium will be fixed. And don't get me started on Uuo.........

Given IUPAC's general response time on element nomenclature this should only take a decade. Two at the most.

 

[rjh01]

A four year old video from Periodic Table of Videos

Edit. I look forward to an updated video by them.

 

[Dr. Imago]

The question is... where's the next stable species (i.e. one that "lives" for more than a few nanoseconds)? Imagine if they could find that, or a series, and what (if any) application(s) would it have? Boggles the mind to ponder.

"There are predictions that super-heavy elements should exist which are very long-lived," Düllmann told Live Science. "It is interesting to find out if half-lives become long again for very heavy elements, especially if very neutron-rich species are made.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/03/element-117-ununseptium-confirmed_n_5259648.html

This one named... ununseptium... at least temporarily.

~Dr. Imago

 

[Belz...]

Vibranium !

 

[catsmate]

The question is... where's the next stable species (i.e. one that "lives" for more than a few nanoseconds)? Imagine if they could find that, or a series, and what (if any) application(s) would it have? Boggles the mind to ponder.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/03/element-117-ununseptium-confirmed_n_5259648.html

This one named... ununseptium... at least temporarily.

~Dr. Imago

Well Uus has been in use as a placeholder for a few years, along with Uuo and more. The naming decision is a lengthy and political process, I suspect both Uup and Uus will be named together as happened with flerovium and livermorium.

The Island of Stability s predicted to start in the mid/high 120s with the synthesis of ³⁰⁰Ubn being of particular interest given that the doubly magic ³¹⁰Ubh has no easy fusion path; there may be a second island possible around Uhq.

That said there are almost certainly more stable isotopes of some of the current transuranics but the lack of binary fusion pathways make investigation of more neutron rich isotopes difficult.

 

[Dr. Imago]

Well Uus has been in use as a placeholder for a few years, along with Uuo and more. The naming decision is a lengthy and political process, I suspect both Uup and Uus will be named together as happened with flerovium and livermorium.

Yeah, I believe the placeholders go pretty far up the line "un-un-septium"... "1" "1" "7"... etc., IIRC? Optimistic to be sure. It's interesting that they are searching for a name, a political endeavor without a doubt. And the potential to either make a lot of people happy and/or piss a lot of people off.

In medicine there seems to have been a concerted push by the Ivory Tower™ lot to move away from eponymously named diseases and procedures and instead stick to the descriptive one. I dunno. Pancreaticoduodenectomy doesn't quite roll off the tongue like "Whipple's procedure". I don't think this movement is going to catch on.

The Island of Stability s predicted to start in the mid/high 120s with the synthesis of ³⁰⁰Ubn being of particular interest given that the doubly magic ³¹⁰Ubh has no easy fusion path; there may be a second island possible around Uhq.

That said there are almost certainly more stable isotopes of some of the current transuranics but the lack of binary fusion pathways make investigation of more neutron rich isotopes difficult.

This is fascinating stuff. Makes me wonder what they will consider a success from one of the yet-to-be-discovered stable species. Does that stability mean that it will not degrade for, say, a millisecond, a few minutes, a few hours? Or, does that mean that it will be stable in that it will be like carbon¹² and you will actually have time to do experiments with it (etc.)?

~Dr. Imago

 

[catsmate]

Yeah, I believe the placeholders go pretty far up the line "un-un-septium"... "1" "1" "7"... etc., IIRC?

Ununoctium is the furthest anyone's seriously working on; there have been a few attempts at unbihexium (126) because of it's expected stability.

Optimistic to be sure. It's interesting that they are searching for a name, a political endeavor without a doubt. And the potential to either make a lot of people happy and/or piss a lot of people off.

Oh yes, it's very political. Official names for 104 and 105 took thirty years (and no-one wants a repeat of having to un-name hahnium). That's one of the reasons for the (unofficial) policy of naming in pairs.

In medicine there seems to have been a concerted push by the Ivory Tower™ lot to move away from eponymously named diseases and procedures and instead stick to the descriptive one. I dunno. Pancreaticoduodenectomy doesn't quite roll off the tongue like "Whipple's procedure". I don't think this movement is going to catch on.

Meh, the delay in official names getting approved basically forced IUPAC to do something and the systematic naming policy was the result. It's cumbersome but it works,
After all we have more than half the period table left to go.

This is fascinating stuff. Makes me wonder what they will consider a success from one of the yet-to-be-discovered stable species. Does that stability mean that it will not degrade for, say, a millisecond, a few minutes, a few hours?

Well some of the transuranics (or rather transplutonics) last for years years. The problem is you really need significant amounts of the heavy elements to make the heavier, otherwise you end up with neutron deficient isotopes.

Current predictions for the 'island metals' suggest some isotopes may have half lives of millions of years; the problem is our current model is demonstrably wrong and needs more data to improve.

Or, does that mean that it will be stable in that it will be like carbon¹² and you will actually have time to do experiments with it (etc.)?

Well no isotope of an element heavier than lead is truly stable but a half life of a few million years is fine for chemical purposes. Of course that assumes you have more than a few hundred atoms to work with.

 

[rjh01]

If some elements have a half life of millions of years I wonder if they could be detected in super-novas? After all they are the places where heavy elements are created.

 

[catsmate]

If some elements have a half life of millions of years I wonder if they could be detected in super-novas? After all they are the places where heavy elements are created.

Very probably they're created and there's currently research on this. However the only 'nearby' supernova is 1987A and there's no sign of transuranics there. There have been claims (link) of such atoms in stellar debris.