Wednesday 8 June 2016

New element names

The announcement came through today that the elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 now have names suggested by the discoverers and recommended for acceptance by the official committee that deals with such things.  There is now a public review, ending on 8th November 2016, but I can't see any reason why the names will not stand.  They are:

113: Nihonium, after Japan, where the element was discovered
115: Moscovium, since the element 115 effort was a collaboration involving a research lab in Dubna, in Russia's Moscow Oblast
117: Tennessine, honouring the role of Tennessee in the collaboration, with scientists from Oak Ridge National Lab, UT Knoxville, and Vanderbilt University (Nashville) involved in the work.  The different ending to the element name comes from the fact that element 117 sits in the halogens which conventionally end with the –ine suffix.
118: Oganesson, after Yuri Oganessian, who for many years has been the driving force of the superheavy element group at Dubna.  The –on ending is thanks to element 118 sitting in the noble gas column of the periodic table. That's Yuri Oganessian in the picture attached to this post.  Well done Yuri, and everyone else involved in the discoveries.


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