Ask A Scientist Chemistry Archive

(Created prior to 1993)

Question: Has IUPAC developed names for the elements 104-109?
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There are essentially only three labs in the world which can 
produce and detect these short-lived (i.e. millisecond half-lives) heavy 
elements and in many cases they have competing claims for discovering them.  
The labs are:  Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, Russia (Dubna); 
GSI(Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung), Germany; and LBL (Lawrence 
Berkeley Lab).  All are very large research facilities which devote great 
amounts of time, effort and dollars to the study of nuclear chemistry/physics.  
The naming of new elements is a particularly delicate issue.  Since the honor 
of naming it is traditionally given to the group which is credited with 
discovering it.  This is an important and highly-visible honor which touches 
on national and institutional pride, and future funding.  IUPAC (The 
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) has been careful about
offending anyone and in the 70's suggested neutral numeric names:  104 Unq 
(unnilquadium), 105 Unp (unnilpentium), 106 Unh (unnilhexium), 107 Uns 
(unnilseptium), 108 Uno (unnioctium), 109 Une (unnilennium), and 110 
(unununium).  Very few researchers used these names which further confused the 
situation since many of these elements had more than one name to choose from.  
This September (1992) the GSI group submitted a letter to IUPAC proposing 
names and symbols for elements 107, 108, and 109, and an IUPAC commission made 
a report on the competing claims (see Chemical and Engineering News Sept 14, 
1992 p4-5).  Which further confuses matters.
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