Properties and Syntheses of Superheavy Elements

Investigation of physical and chemical properties of recently synthesized, relatively long-living isotopes of superheavy elements (SHEs) with nuclear charges Z=105 to 116 [1, 2, 3, 4] and their compounds is of fundamental importance. Their measured lifetimes may reach several hours and the nuclei near the top of the island of stability are predicted to exist for many years. The experimental study of the SHE properties is very difficult be-... 

A further group of elements, the transuranium elements, has been synthesized by artificial nuclear reactions in the period from 1940 onwards their relation to the periodic table is discussed fully in Chapter 31 and need not be repeated here. Perhaps even more striking today are the predictions, as yet unverified, for the properties of the currently non-existent superheavy elements.Elements up to lawrencium (Z = 103) are actinides (5f) and the 6d transition series starts with element 104. So far only elements 104-112 have been synthesized, ) and, because there is as yet no agreement on trivial names for some of these elements (see pp. 1280-1), they are here referred to by their atomic numbers. A systematic naming scheme was approved by lUPAC in 1977 but is not widely used by researchers in the field. It involves the use of three-letter symbols derived directly from the atomic number by using the... 

The following sections will provide a discussion of nuclear reactions by which superheavy elements have been synthesized and the methods used in their isolation and detection. Since this chapter is part of a monograph on the chemistry of the superheavy elements, species with half-lives of more than one second will be emphasized shorter-lived species are unlikely to survive the time required for chemical processes. Detailed information on nuclear properties, structure, and... 

Guided by a judicious combination of consideration of the calculated electronic structures, the periodic table (as shown in Figs 24.1 and 24.2X and various well-established qualitative chemical theories, scientists have been able to make some detailed predictions of the chemical properties of the superheavy elements. Of course, at first these elements will at best be produced one atom at a time , and they offer scant hope for ultimate production in the macroscopic quantities that would be required to verify some of these predictions. However, many of the predicted specific macroscopic properties, as well as the more general properties predicted for the other elements, will be useful in designing tracer experiments for the chemical identification of any of these elements that might be synthesized. 

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