New element added to periodic table: Element 112

06-11-2009 • Reuters

A team in Germany first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.

"The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement late on Wednesday.

1 Comments in Response to New element added to periodic table: Element 112

Comment by DagnyTaggart

Entered on: 6/11/2009 1:50:13 PM

Welcome to 1996?

Atomic number 112, also known as Ununbium is presumed to be a liquid at 298 K. The color is unknown, but is thought to be either a metallic silvery white or gray color. Ununbium is classified as a metallic. Its atomic mass is 277. It is now the heaviest atom ever produced by man. Ununbium reacts with a lot of different compounds such as air, water, halogens, acids, and bases. This element was produced by fusing a zinc atom with a lead atom. The zinc atom was accelerated to high energies with a heavy ion accelerator UNILAC at GSI and directed onto a lead target. The rare reaction only occurs when the zinc has a specific velocity. Taking several weeks, billions of billions of zinc atoms are shot at a lead target in order to produce and detect a single atom of element 112. The whole process makes it possible to penetrate even further into the region of super-heavy atoms.

Ununbium was discovered on February 9th, 1996 at the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany by a group of scientist. The group, led by Peter Armbruster, discovered 5 elements previous to element 112. The international research group included Sigurd Hofmann and scientists from GSI, the nuclear research center Dubna in Russia, and the universities of Bratislava, Slovakia and Jyvaskyla, Finland. They finally discovered this element after three weeks of experiments. Only a few atoms of element 112 are produced, therefore, this element has no real usage.

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