Four New Elements Are Added To The Periodic Table

Names for four new elements, formerly known by their respective atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118, have been proposed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).
The proposed names are

• 113- Nihonium (Nh): Nihon is one way to say the country’s name in Japanese. This is first to be discovered by Asian country
• 115 - Moscovium (Mc) - After Moscow in Russia
• 117- Tennessine (Ts) - After Tennessine state in USA
• 118- Oganesson (Og)- The name honors Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian

More about these elements

• These four elements were added to the periodic table in December , 2015 which completed the Periodic table’s seventh row.
• The elements, discovered by scientists in Japan, Russia and America, are the first to be added to the table since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were added.
• Element 113 is the first to be discovered in east Asia. It was created by Kosuke Morita’s group at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-based Science in Japan, by firing a beam of zinc-70 at a target made of bismuth-209.
• Elements 115 and 117 were discovered by groups collaborating across three institutions – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US.
• The Lawrence Livermore-Joint Institute for Nuclear Research collaboration is also credited with having fulfilled the criteria for discovering element 118 ..
• The four new elements, all of which are synthetic, were discovered by slamming lighter ­nuclei into each other and tracking the following decay of the radioactive superheavy elements.
• The four were verified by the US-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the global organisation that governs chemical nomenclature, terminology and measurement.
• The discoverers of the elements were invited to propose the names. IUPAC provided the discoverers with guidelines to assist them in creating the names. These names keep with the longstanding tradition of being named after a mythological concept or character (including an astronomical object), a mineral or similar substance, a place or geographical region, a property of the element or a scientist. Also, they must end in “-ium,” “-ine,” or “-on” depending on the grouping of elements they belong to. IUPAC also prefers the names translate easily across major languages.

About IUPAC:

• The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations that represents chemists in individual countries. It is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU).
• Headquarter: Zürich, Switzerland.
• The IUPAC was established in 1919 as the successor of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry for the advancement of chemistry.
• Its members, the National Adhering Organizations, can be national chemistry societies, national academies of sciences, or other bodies representing chemists.
• There are fifty-four National Adhering Organizations and three Associate National Adhering Organizations.
• The IUPAC’s Inter-divisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols (IUPAC nomenclature) is the recognized world authority in developing standards for the naming of the chemical elements and compounds.

By: Vishal