Nature Chemistry | The Sceptical Chymist

IUPAC formally issues the final word on 112…

So, after literally some speculation and tongue-in-cheek outrage, IUPAC has officially definitely finally approved “the name copernicium, with symbol Cn, for the element of atomic number 112”.

Quoting again from the IUPAC press-release "The Recommendations will be published in the March issue of the IUPAC journal Pure and Applied Chemistry and is available online at Pure Appl. Chem., 2010, Vol. 82, No. 3, pp. pp 753-755 (doi: 10.1351/PACREC-09-08-20)."

So there it is. The final word on copernicium – without numbers down the side of the page (like the provisional report Mitch alerted us all to).

But it’s not the final word for new elements: IUPAC go on to tease us: “The Joint Working Party will issue a second report, dealing with claims for the discovery of elements with atomic numbers in the range 113 to 118, in the near future.” I can less-than-exclusively reveal that Wikipedia reports that the Riken team who are co-claiming discovery have suggested ‘japonium’ and ‘rikenium’ (original interview here).

Watch this space for more element-naming news…

Neil

Neil Withers

(Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Comments

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    Steve said:

    I personally find copernicium awkward to pronounce. It’s obviously not going to change now, but I think there would have been a good case for a fifth element to end in just ‘um’.

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    The Sceptical Chymist said:

    Nuclear research: Elusive element 117 created

    So far, up to the atomic number 118, only one element had yet to be produced — element 117, temporarily referred to as ‘ununseptium’. Yuri Oganessian and colleagues in Russia and the US have now announced doing just this,…