Just when you thought you had remembered them all, science seemed headed towards a new element on the periodic table.
Scientists at Lund University in Sweden have reported on an alternative way that has been discovered to produce atoms of the “superheavy” element called livermorium.
“The new method opens up the possibility of creating another element that could be the heaviest in the world so far,” the research report said.
“The livermorium experiment will continue for the rest of the year, after which the researchers plan to start work on trying to produce element number 120, which could take several years.”
The report said a search for new elements came from “the dream” of finding a variant that was sufficiently stable to be long-lived and not prone to immediate decay.
“There is a theory in nuclear physics about an island of stability of superheavy elements,” the research report said.
“This is a potential zone in the upper part of the periodic table of as-yet-undiscovered elements that could remain stable for longer than just a few seconds. The aim is to explore the limits of stability of atomic nuclei.”
Researcher Dirk Rudolph said the team was able to register a livermorium nucleus in its detector just eight days into the experiment.
This showed they had “chosen pretty good settings from the start”.
In addition to Berkeley Lab and Lund University, nearly a dozen other higher education institutions have participated in the project.
The full report is on the Lund University website.
