115-Ununpentium Traditional Cache
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Periodic Table of Elements Challenge
GC2P5TJ
Ununpentium is the temporary name of a synthetic superheavy element in the periodic table that has the temporary symbol Uup and has the atomic number 115. It is placed as the heaviest member of group 15 (VA) although a sufficiently stable isotope is not known at this time that would allow chemical experiments to confirm its position. It was first observed in 2003 and about 50 atoms of ununpentium have been synthesized to date, with about 25 direct decays of the parent element having been detected. Four consecutive isotopes are currently known, 287–290Uup, with 289Uup having the longest measured half-life of ~200 ms.
Discovery profile
Simulation of an accelerated calcium-48 ion about to collide with an americium-243 target atom. On February 2, 2004, synthesis of ununpentium was reported in Physical Review C by a team composed of Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, and American scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The team reported that they bombarded americium-243 with calcium-48 ions to produce four atoms of ununpentium. These atoms, they report, decayed by emission of alpha-particles to ununtrium in approximately 100 milliseconds.
The Dubna-Livermore collaboration has strengthened their claim for the discovery of ununpentium by conducting chemical experiments on the decay daughter 268Db. In experiments in June 2004 and December 2005, the Dubnium isotope was successfully identified by milking the Db fraction and measuring any SF activities. Both the half-life and decay mode were confirmed for the proposed 268Db which lends support to the assignment of Z=115 to the parent nuclei. Sergei Dmitriev from the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions (FLNR) in Dubna, Russia, has formally put forward their claim of discovery of ununpentium to the Joint Working Party (JWP) from IUPAC and IUPAP. In 2011, the IUPAC evaluated the Dubna-Livermore results and concluded that they did not meet the criteria for discovery. Recent experiments at Dubna have fully confirmed the data for ununpentium and ununtrium but have yet to be fully published and reviewed by the JWP. This process is likely not to occur for some time.
Naming
Ununpentium is historically known as eka-bismuth. Ununpentium is a temporary IUPAC systematic element name derived from the digits 115, where "un-" represents Latin unum. "Pent-" represents the Greek word for 5, and it was chosen because the Latin word for 5 ("quin") starts with 'q', which would have caused confusion with ununquadium, element 114. Research scientists usually refer to the element simply as element 115.
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