Has Element 113 Finally Been Discovered?

Long thought to be too unstable to be synthesized in our current atom smashers, is the recent announcement by the IUPAC serves as a true confirmation of the “creation” of Element 113?

By: Ringo Bones

In January 4, 2016, officials from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) have announced the confirmation of the discovery of not only the elusive and unstable Element 113 but also its close siblings – elements 115, 117 and 118, stating that there is now enough evidence to give them permanent places on the Periodic Table of the Elements. This also means that they also need their respective new, official names. 

By their very nature, you won’t find these four newly discovered elements occurring naturally in reasonable abundance because they can only be produced synthetically in our corner of the universe because their isotopes that we manage to synthesize so far decay in a matter of seconds or less. Their existence has been theorized but has been difficult to confirm. Until now, elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 had temporary names and positions on the bottom “Seventh Row” of the Periodic Table of the Elements because – probably since the 1980s – scientists have struggled to create them more than once for “scientifically verifiable results”.

Kosuke Morita and team of RIKEN in Japan had been credited for the discovery of Element 113 and its close siblings. He says: “For over seven years we continued to search for data conclusively identifying Element 113, but we just never saw another event. I was not prepared to give up however, as I believed that one day, if we persevered, luck would fall upon us again.” 

Morita’s team has been credited with the confirmed discovery of Element 113, which means they’ve won the naming rights too. Until now, the element had been known by the temporary name ununtrium and the temporary chemical symbol Uut. The three remaining elements – 115, 117 and 118 – known temporarily as ununpentium (Uup), ununseptium (Uus) and ununoctium (Uuo) respectively will also get new names. 

Previous attempts to synthesize and the discovery of Element 113 and Element 115 were reported back in February 2004 following experiments carried out between July 4 and August 10, 2003. In these experiments, the primary product was the four nuclei of Element 115 isotopes. All these four nuclei decayed through the emission of u- particles to isotopes of Element 113. But the claim has not been ratified by the IUPAC back then because of a lack of scientifically verifiable reproducibility of the results. 

Ever since the discovery of Element 114 back in 1999 as the event was announced through e-mail which was then published in the April 1999 issue of Scientific American magazine by scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna near Moscow reported strong evidence that they have created the heaviest element yet, one with 114 protons and i84 neutrons, many a nuclear physicists suggest that Element 113 is critically located in an unstable region of the Periodic Table that attempts to synthesize it only resulted in the creation of more stable heavier elements of a higher atomic number. A team led by Yuri Oganesian and Vladimir Utyonkov smashed a rare isotope – calcium-48 – with a plutonium-244 target to synthesize Element 114. Element 114 lasted an astonishing 30 seconds, far longer that the 280 microseconds of the previously discovered Element 112. The relatively long life of Element 114 was taken as proof that “islands of stability” exists in the super heavy element range. 

Boron: The Famous Chemical Element You've Never Heard About?

It may currently have a myriad of uses but do most of us even know some common household applications of the chemical element boron? 

By: Ringo Bones

Outside of a high-school chemistry class, the chemical element boron managed to grab the headlines with regards to its usefulness in our everyday life since the end of World War II. From the boron automotive fuel adverts cobbled up by Madison Avenue “Mad Men” back in the 1950s supposedly “inspired” by the XB-70 Valkyrie to the high end boron composites used in high-end vinyl cartridge cantilevers and tennis racquets in the 1990s, it seems that boron’s claim to fame unfortunately never managed to register in the general public’s consciousness even though that without it, modern life as we know it is nigh on impossible. 

Boron, chemical symbol B, is a semimetallic chemical element. It is a member of the aluminum family, which also includes aluminum, gallium, indium and thallium. It was discovered by Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard back in 1808. Thénard and Gay-Lussac’s results were confirmed in the same year by Sir Humphry Davy, who had isolated boron, but had not recognized it as a new element in 1807. Boron is best known in the form of one of its salts, boric acid, which is used as an eye-wash. Boron is obtained primarily from borax and colemanite, both of which are compounds of boron, oxygen and sodium. The world’s leading producer of boron is the United States; other major producers are Argentina, Turkey and Germany. 

Boron is found at the top of Group IIIA of the periodic table. There are two allotropes of boron; a crystalline form which is harder than corundrum and has a luster, and a brown amorphous powder, whose electrical conductivity is 2-million times greater at 400 degrees Celsius than at room temperature. 

Boron, in its elemental form, is used chiefly in the metal industries. It is used as a deoxidizer and degasifier in metallurgical processes; in alloy steels to increase high temperature strength characteristics; in the heat treatment of malleable iron; and in refining the grain of aluminum castings. Boron, combined with aluminum or plastics, is an effective and lightweight neutron-shielding material; for this reason, boron steels have found use as control rods in atomic fission nuclear reactors. When shaped by hot-pressing methods, boron finds use in phonographic needles, lightning arresters, thermoelectric couples, resistance thermometers and similar electrical devices. 

The element is also a component of “boron fuels” which have been used for propelling space vehicles and as a very energetic jet fuel during the XB-70 Valkyrie experimental Mach 3 capable heavy strategic bomber program. A boron based jet fuel called tri-ethyl borane or TEB guaranties ignition in the engines of the SR-71 Blackbird even at minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit – the ambient temperature at 70,000 feet. And back in the 1950s, boron gasoline / boron automotive fuels were all the rage no doubt “inspired” by the US Air Force’s XB-70 Valkyrie program. 

In the combined form, boron is used in the ceramic, glass, enamel and mining industries. Refined borax is an ingredient in many detergents and soaps, laundry starches, water-softening compounds, adhesives, cosmetics and disinfecting products for fruit and lumber. Boron compounds are also used in the manufacture of paper, plastics and leather. 

It may be one of the least glamorous of all the health supplements, but boron could actually help reduce the risk of prostate cancer. In the first epedemiologic study of this trace element, researchers have found out that men who consume the most boron, 1,8 micrograms a day, have a 62 percent lower chance of developing prostate cancer, compared with those who get half that amount. Foods which are the best source of dietary boron are nuts, fruits like grapes, prunes and avocado and vegetables and also wine.  

Transfer Reactions: A Way To Create Stable Elements Beyond 106?

Even though creating transuranic elements in the lab has been regarded to as a mere “scientific curiosity”, is there a way to create new ones beyond the atomic number 106?

By: Ringo Bones 

 These days, most of the general public is not jumping up and down with excitement when it comes to synthesizing new elements beyond the atomic number 106. But for almost 35 years now, there has been a very promising method of creating “relatively stable” new elements beyond the atomic number 106. 

At the start of the 1980s, nuclear chemists have thus far been frustrated in their attempts to create super heavy elements with atomic numbers greater than 106, although theories predict that some such elements may be relatively stable. Back in 1980, hopes turned to “transfer reactions” in which one nucleus transfers a portion of its nucleons to another nucleus during a collision. Traditionally, it has been believed that colliding nuclei should combine totally to form a compound nucleus, but Prof. Darlene Hoffman and colleagues from Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico observed that partial combinations occur in certain reactions. The transfer mechanism holds out hope for producing some of the super heavy elements. 

Back in 1999, the technique of transfer reactions did manage to generate some excitement – and a brand new element. Via an e-mail announcement back then, scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, near Moscow reported strong evidence that they have created the heaviest element yet, one with 114 protons and 184 neutrons. In a recently published work back then, a team of nuclear physicists led by Yuri Oganessian and Vladimir Utyonkov smashed a rare isotope, calcium-48 with a plutonium-244 target to make the element 114. The then brand new element lasted an astonishingly long 30 seconds before decaying into another lighter element, far longer than the 280 microseconds of the last new element found – element 113. The relatively long life of element 114 proves that “islands of stability” exist in the super heavy element range. 

Do Protons Really Last Forever?

With the lower limit for the lifetime of a proton is described to be 100 billion trillion times longer than the age of the universe, do protons really last forever? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Those Madison Avenue “Mad Men” hired by DeBeers may have been a little way off the mark when they made a bold advertising claim that “A diamond is forever” – well, at least on a human timescale. But in the world of theoretical physicists – which we are also a part of – there is something that may indeed really last forever and could potentially even outlast our own universe. 

Given the current experimental evidence obtained so far, theoretical physicists has reached a current consensus that the lower limit for the lifetime of a proton – which forms part of the atomic nucleus of ordinary baryonic matter – is described to be at least 100 billion trillion times longer than the age of our universe – which current experimental observations pegged it to be about 13.8 billion years old. For almost 40 years, Scientific American magazine has published several articles on various experiments – some of them are even elaborately grandiose in scale – to determine the absolute lifetime of a proton. 

In particle physics, proton decay is a hypothetical form of radioactive decay in which a proton decays into lighter subatomic particles, such as a neutral pion and a positron. As far as particle physics knows, proton decay has yet to be observed and there is currently no experimental evidence that proton decay even occurs.

In the Standard Model, protons – a type of baryon – are theoretically stable because their baryon number is conserved, that is under normal circumstances; however there is that “chiral anomaly”. Therefore protons will not decay into other particles on their own because they are the lightest – and therefore the least energetic – baryon. 

Some theoretical studies beyond the Standard Model, grand unified theories (GUTs) explicitly break the baryon number symmetry, allowing protons to decay via the Higgs Particle, magnetic monopoles or new X-bosons. Proton decay is one of the few observable effects of the various proposed grand unified theories. To date, all attempts to observe a proton’s decay so far have failed, but some theoretical physicists have proposed that the continuously accelerating expansion of our own universe since the Big Bang might affect the apparent stability of the proton – maybe perhaps 100 billion years from now. 

Tantalum: The Newest Precious Metal?

Given that the advent of the smart phone, mobile phone and tablet computer boom a few years ago now made tantalum more expensive than silver – does this mean that tantalum is the newest precious metal?

By: Ringo Bones

Even though it has been in use in high performance electronic gear since the technological boom of the 1960s, it is only when the massive demand for mobile phones, smart phones and tablet computers a few years ago has finally made tantalum more expensive than silver making it the newest addition to the precious metals family. Chemical symbol Ta, atomic number 73, tantalum is a metallic chemical element. It is a member of the vanadium family which includes niobium and vanadium. Tantalum was discovered in 1802 by Anders Gustav Ekeberg and an ultrapure specimen was finally purified by Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1820. 

The name of the element is derived from Greek mythology: King Tantalus, the son of Zeus, was punished by being placed in a pool in which the level of water receded from him each time he tried to drink; the name of the element is thus symbolic of the difficulty encountered in its isolation that lead to the discovery of the element. Tantalum is freed from its various ores by caustic or by potassium monosulfate fusion followed by water extraction to give the water soluble solution. 

During the technological boom of the 1960s, the principal source of tantalum is iron tantalite which is chemically similar to the mineral columbite. In the 1960s, the African country then known as Rhodesia – which since 1980 has been renamed Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabe took over when it became independent from the UK – produces about 70 percent of the world’s supply of the metal. But since the 21^st Century mobile phone, smart phone and tablet computer boom, virtually all tantalum produced today are sourced from the mineral coltan which is, unfortunately, mined in conflict zones in Africa by warlords to underwrite their various military adventurism in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and neighboring countries - as in classified as a "conflict mineral" by the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

Tantalum is a white metal, remarkably ductile, malleable, strong and tough. It has a melting point of 3,100 degrees Celsius and a boiling point of 6,000 degrees Celsius and a density of 16.69 grams per cubic centimeter. Tantalum resists the action of acids, including the one capable of dissolving gold called aqua regia - which is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, but tantalum can be dissolved by a mixture of nitric acid and hydrofluoric acid.  

Tantalum is used to make dental and surgical instruments, corrosion-resistant equipment, electrodes, rectifiers, pens, receptacles, tubes and other chemical-engineering devices are readily formed for use in reactions utilizing corrosive vapors and liquids and in vacuum furnace parts. In the electronics industry, those ultra-compact acid electrolyte tantalum electrolytic capacitors which are 20 times smaller than aluminum electrolytic capacitors of the same capacitance value and working voltage and pulsating direct current is obtained from alternating current by the use of tantalum-lead-sulfuric-acid-rectifier and electric-lamp filaments.

Other electrical and electronic uses of tantalum is the World War I era tantalum alloy rechargeable batteries that made the company who made it - Tannoy - famous the world over, though these days, Tannoy is more famous as a high-quality Scotland based hi-fi loudspeaker manufacturer than a World War I era rechargeable battery manufacturer. In addition, tantalum is used as an alloying element with both steel and tungsten and in standard weights. Tantalum carbide is a very hard substance that’s used for drill points and other cutting devices. 

Almost impervious to corrosion, tantalum is vital in surgical repairs of the human body: it can replace bone – for example in skull plates – as foil or wire, tantalum connects torn nerves. Used as woven gauze, tantalum binds up abdominal muscles. Tantalum’s good thermal conductivity give it utility in the production of surgical splints, screws, nails, sheets, gauze, plates, etc. for use in internal body repair.