Replacing Uut, Uup, Uus, and Uuo with Nh, Mc, Ts, and Og.
Of the 118 elements known, 94 are naturally found on Earth, this leaves the remaining 24 elements that are not found naturally, i.e., they were created in a lab.
In June of 2016, it was publicly announced that the periodic table will have four new elements added to it. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has worked with the laboratories that discovered the elements to name them and then released the new periodic table for a five-month public review period which expired on the 8th of November, 2016. After the review period, the IUPAC Council formally approved the revised periodic table.
The elements, which do not occur naturally and can only be produced in the laboratory, are discovered by smashing together light nuclei and tracking the decay of the resulting super-heavy elements. They exist only for a fraction of a second, which has made their discovery difficult. Element 113, for example, was found by hitting a thin layer of bismuth with zinc ions traveling at a tenth the speed of light, temporarily producing an atom of the element.
The new elements have been added to the lower
right-hand corner and consist of:
Nihonium (symbol Nh) – atomic number 113
Moscovium (symbol Mc) – atomic number 115
Tennessine (symbol Ts) – atomic number 117
Oganesson (symbol Og) – atomic number 118
The rights of naming the elements were given to those research teams that discovered them. The US, Russia and Japan were credited with the discovery of the new elements and the names were announced in June of 2016. Whilst these teams have the rights to name the elements, they do have to follow a naming convention as outlined by the IUPAC which states that any new element must be named after either:
- a mythological concept or character (including an astronomical object),
- a mineral or a similar substance,
- a place, or geographical region,
- a property of the element, or
- a scientist.
The Meaning Behind the Names
Nihonium – Nihon is one way to say “Japan” in Japanese. As this was the first element discovered by an Asian country, Japan wanted the name to represent the geographical region. Nihon means “The Land of Rising Sun” and provides a direct connection to Japan as a nation.
Moscovium – Moscovium also represents a geographical region, specifically, the Moscow region which is where the discovery experiments were conducted.
Tennessine – Tennessine recognizes the laboratories that contribute to element research in the Tennessee region which include Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Oganesson – Oganesson attributed its name to a scientist following the IUPAC naming convention. Professor Yuri Oganessian (born 1933) is a Russian nuclear physicist who is credited with three confirmed element discoveries.
While the table is now effectively complete, researchers are beginning to look for elements beyond the 7th row, hypothetical “islands of stability” where heavier elements exist.
For more info about this - Go to the IUPAC website
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