Ununquadium: the essentials

ununquadium symbol icon

 Brief description: element 114 was reported informally in January 1999 following experiments towards the end of December 1998 involving scientists at Dubna (Joint Institute for Nuclear Research) in Russia apparently using isotopes supplied by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA. Only one atom was identified and the claim has not yet been ratified. The results of calculations suggest that element 114 will not form a tetrafluoride UuqF4, but could be isolated as a water-soluble difluoride UuqF2.

Table: basic information about and classifications of ununquadium.

http://www.gsi.de/forschung/kp/kp2/ship/education/dubna.html [Hints for element 114 from Dubna]

Isolation

Isolation: currently, the identification of element 114 is yet to be confirmed. As only about three atoms of element 114 has ever been made (through nuclear reaction involving fusing a calcium atom with a plutonium atom) isolation of an observable quantity has never been achieved, and may well never be.

24494Pu + 4820Ca → 288114Uuq + 4 1n

24494Pu + 4820Ca → 289114Uuq + 3 1n

The element decomposes through the emission of an α-particle to form element 112 with a half life of about 30 seconds for 289114Uuq and 2 seconds for 288114Uuq.

A different isotope of element 114, 285114Uuq, is observed as a decomposition product of the recently observed element 118. Elements 118 and 116 were identified by accelerating a beam of krypton-86 (8636Kr) ions to an energy of 449 million electron volts and directing the beam onto targets of lead-208 (20882Pb). After 11 days work, just three atoms of the new element were identified. The production rates for element 118 are approximately one in every 1012 interactions.

20882Pb + 8636Kr → 293118Uuo + 1n

Element 118 nucleus decays less than a millisecond after its formation by emitting an α-particle. This results in an isotope of element 116 (mass number 289, containing 116 protons and 173 neutrons). This isotope of element 116, is also radioactive and undergoes further α-decay processes to an isotope of element 114 and so on down to at least element 106.

293118Uuo → 289116Uuh + 42He (0.12 milliseconds)

289116Uuh → 285114Uuq + 42He (0.60 milliseconds)

285114Uuq → 281112Uub + 42He (0.58 milliseconds)

281112Uub → 277110Uun + 42He (0.89 milliseconds)

277110Uun → 273108Hs + 42He (3 milliseconds)

273108Hs → 269106Sg + 42He (1200 milliseconds)

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ununquadium atomic number