The seventh row of the periodic table is complete after the discovery and verification of elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). According to a Dec. 30, 2015, IUPAC press release, the four elements have working titles and abbreviations of Ununtrium (Uut), Ununpentium (Uup), Ununseptium (Uus) and Ununoctium (Uuo), respectively.
According to an NPR interview by Audie Cornish with Jim Roberto, a member of the research team that discovered elements 115 and 117, the experiments lasted about six months, and the scientists were able to view the atoms for the length of their entire respective lifespans: about 20 to 40 milliseconds.
“The new elements are synthetic, very unstable and extremely rare,” Cornish said.
Dr. Burt Hollandsworth, associate professor of chemistry, said that efforts to synthesize the so-called “superheavy” elements (elements 112-118) began in earnest in the 1990s. According to Hollandsworth, there has been a race between research groups in Russia, the U.S., and Japan, to produce superheavy elements by bombarding other very heavy elements with beams of lighter particles.
“If the combination of mass and energy is just right, the superheavy elements are produced a few atoms at a time, and they can exist for up to a few milliseconds before decomposing into isotopes of more stable elements,” Hollandsworth said.
Hollandsworth said that, while the discovery of these superheavy elements will generate some fleeting interest in high-energy physics, it is largely a politicized process focused on naming new elements; the particle accelerator experiments utilized by the research teams will likely not lead to any materials stable enough to be useful to humans.
“The organization already had numbers there like they were expecting to find something, so it’s possible that they just got really excited and jumped the gun to fill up the last row,” senior molecular and cell biology major Emily Weldon said.
Weldon said that she feels the organization has put too much stock in something that cannot even be controlled.
“The nuclei of the superheavy elements barely exist long enough to become atoms, much less form compounds,” Hollandsworth said. “(But) there is something to be learned with every high-energy particle collision, and particle physicists are able to make better predictions of what to expect with future experiments based on all of these recent experiments.”
Cornish said that, while there seems to be no practical application of this research currently on the horizon, it is an important step in the scientific understanding of the atomic world.
“Chemistry junkies, rejoice,” Cornish said.
