International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommends to call 118th element of periodic table after MEPhI graduate Yu.Ts. Oganessian
17.08.2016

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has announced recommended names for four new elements of the 7th period of the periodic table – 113, 115, 117, and 118. This is the information from the Union’s website.

The scientific pioneering groups have proposed the following names:

  • Nihonium and symbol Nh, for the element 113,
  • Moscovium and symbol Mc, for the element 115,
  • Tennessine and symbol Ts, for the element 117, and
  • Oganesson and symbol Og, for the element 118.

New elements have been added into the periodic table in January, 2016 by IUPAC solution. The atoms with the charges of 113, 115, 117, and 118 have been obtained deliberately, with the help of heavy ions’ bombarding by nuclei of other atoms.

The Japanese Institute RIKEN has chosen the name for the element 113.

115, 117, and 118 elements have been discovered by a joint Russian-American group of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The Oganesson element has been named in honor of MEPhI graduate, RAS academician Yuriy Oganessian, research supervisor of the laboratory of nuclear reactions of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, co-author of discoveries of 104-107 elements of the periodic table, a major scientist in the field of experimental nuclear physics, including physics of heavy ions.

These titles are considered recommended by the Department of Non-organic chemistry of IUPAC. They will be in the public review, after which IUPAC Council will formally accept these titles as the official.

The RAS academician Yuriy Oganessian graduated from MEPhI Department №5 of Professor A.I. Leypunskiy in 1956. Being a student of G.N. Flyorov, he contributed a lot to the realization of original physical ideas, as well as to the development of accelerator’s experimental base.

He is a co-author of the discovery of periodic table’s heavy elements: 104th element, rutherfordium; 105th element, dubnium; 106th element, syborgium; 107th element, bhorium, which was acknowledged as the discovery and was put into the National register of discoveries of the USSR. For the element with atomic number 118 cooperating teams of the discovery’s authors of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (the USA) have suggested the title Oganesson and the symbol Og.