Break out the champagne; the 7th row of the periodic table has been completed with the addition of four new elements. While their existence had been predicted before, they have only now been officially discovered – meaning they can be formally named on the table.
At the moment, the four elements – which occupy the 113th, 115th, 117th and 118th positions – have the monikers Uut, Uup, Uus, and Uuo respectively. That will change now, though, thanks to scientists from Russia, the U.S., and Japan. The number denotes the atomic number, the total number of protons in one atom of the element.
Credit for element 113 has been awarded to scientists at the RIKEN Institute in Wako, Japan, while a Russian-U.S. collaboration from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California takes the plaudits for 118. Elements 115 and 117 were found by the same collaboration with the addition of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The discoveries were ratified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on December 30, meaning the naming process can now go ahead. The discoverers get the right to choose the name, so the Japanese team will name element 113 – with previous reports suggesting they may pluck for “Japanium.
