ChemCafé

Our good old friend and companion of many chemical adventures, the periodic table, will soon have a new element in its seventh, unfinished row. The so far unnamed element 112 was recently reported by a team from the GSI Helmholzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (Centre for Heavy Ions Research). The researchers led by prof. Sigurd Hofmann were informed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) that their discovery was officially recognized, and that they should now devise a name for the new element – the sixth one to be discovered at the same institute during the last 30 years.

The element, which is roughly 277 times heavier than hydrogen, was produced by using a particle accelerator to fire zinc ions onto lead sheet: Zinc and lead atoms merge through nuclear fusion to produce Element 112: Zinc has the atomic number (hence the number of protons it contains) 30, lead has 82: when the new element is produced, all the protons are gathered in the newly formed nucleus.

The target wheel is equipped with thin lead foil. Inside the foil element 112 was produced for the first time after irradiation with zinc ions. (Credit: A. Zschau, GSI)

Element 112 is part of the so-called super heavy atoms, or transactinides: few is known about these elements, and they serve no purpose outside basic research. Their production requires heavy instrumentation (such as particle accelerators or nuclear reactors) and affords atomic-scale quantities, which, together with a fast radiactive decay (they are stable for a few minutes at best), make their study extremely complicated.

Update (14th July 2009): Prof. Hofmann and his team suggested the name of the new element to be Copernicium, with the symbol Cp. The final decision will be made by IUPAC within a few months. See the press release here.

More infos:

- press release from GSI (10.06.2009)
- Story as reported on ScienceDaily (12.06.2009)