An international team of scientists are bringing a new element to the table. The yet to be named superheavy element temporarily referred to as Element 117 is the latest addition to the Periodic Table of Elements.
The newfound element was discovered by a multinational team of scientists in a laboratory in Germany. While the element is currently unnamed, scientists will soon need to think of a new name for the new element once it is formally approved as a new addition to the periodic table by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The new element was given its temporary name since elements are traditionally arranged on the periodic table with regard to the number of protons found in an element's nucleus. Accordingly, an Element 17 atom contains 117 protons.
"Making element 117 is at the absolute boundary of what is possible right now," said Australian National University (ANU) professor David Hinde, one of the researchers involved in the experiment. "That's why it's a triumph to create and identify even a few of these atoms." Hinde is also the director of the ANU's Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility."
Element 117 is a superheavy element that is approximately 40 percent heavier than lead, another periodic table heavyweight. The new elements atoms were first observed in the GSI Laboratory in Germany. While the researchers successfully confirmed the existence of the element, only four actual atoms were observed. Element 117 is not naturally occurring so observing actual atoms of the element can be difficult. Moreover, the atoms undergo radioactive decay at a very fast rate and the four observed atoms disappeared in a fraction of a second. The recent experiment was able to confirm a previous experiment that was also conducted to produce observable Element 117 atoms back in 2010.
The Element 117 atoms were made by forcing the nuclei of lighter atoms to fuse together until the atoms contain just the right number of protons. While the confirmation experiment was successfully, scientists say that the success rate for these types of experiments is usually very low.
Since the element was first reported during the 2010 experiment in Russia, it is likely that the element's future name will have Russian influences. The researchers who conducted the experiment to confirm the findings of the 2010 experiment published their findings in the online journal Physics Review Letters.
"On the basis of this paper it is likely that element 117 will be accepted," Hinde said. "The big question is, how can we create elements 119 and 120?"
