Img Credits : wired.co.uk
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced that four new Elements will be joining the other 114 on the periodic table of elements. The addition of elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 means, the seventh row or period is now complete! They still don’t have proper names yet, they’re just called by their numbers. So where did these as yet unnamed elements come from? Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National laboratory in California and the Riken institute in Japan, smashed atoms together in particle accelerators and these new elements were created when the two nuclei fused. But the new elements existed only for a fraction of a second. Then they decayed into isotopes of other elements.
Element 113, the one created in Japan, exists for less than a thousandth of a second before it decays into other isotopes, so it’s unlikely you’ll run into this element anytime soon. So alright, sweet new elements. While cool, it probably won’t mean much for your daily life, yet. Unless you have to memorise the entire table in chemistry class, sorry 10th graders. But for science, it could be huge. Scientists have been searching for the elusive “Island of Stability," which according to a theory by Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg is a stable element with just the right number of protons and neutrons. And these new elements might be getting scientists closer to the island of stability.
Img Credits : iflscience.com
You see, most heavy elements, ones with more than 113 protons like these new ones, only exist for a short amount of time. That’s because the force of the positive charges of their protons is too strong and the nucleus is pushed and pulled apart in a fraction of a second. But just like atoms become stable when their outer electron shells are full, some researchers, like Seaborg, believe that if a nuclei has a certain number of proteins arranged in just the right way, the element would be stable, it could last. If we can create this theoretical stable element it could be used to build things we haven’t even imagined yet! Even the effort of doing so, teaches scientists "a tremendous amount of just basic nuclear physics." According to Seaborg, the magic number to hit is 114 protons and 184 neutrons.
And after years of trying, Seaborg’s mentee Ken Moody finally hit the sweet spot by slamming together plutonium and calcium which briefly created a new element. Unfortunately, while the element, now called flerovium, or Fl has 114 protons it doesn’t have the needed 184 neutrons, and so it fell apart too quickly. Element 117, has been heralded as a possible “shore to the island of stability”. Five years ago, A U.S.–Russian team first created it at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia. Described in a journal Physical Review Letters, this new element has a half-life of about 50-thousandths of a second. Which means in that short of a time, half the element will decay into other isotopes like lawrencium-266, which had 103 protons and 163 neutrons, a combination never seen before. This lawrencium-266 even lasted a long time for an isotope, with a half life of 11 hours. Because of this, one of the lead authors said “Perhaps we are at the shore of the island of stability.”
So, maybe, science is one step closer to creating a new element which we could use in ways we haven’t even dreamed of. And though we’re not there yet… we’re getting closer. It’s clear more research is needed. There’s no theoretical limit to how big elements can get! One day scientists might just start filling out the elusive 8th row! So don’t change your shower curtain just yet.
Credits : DNews
