Tennessine (Ts)
Tennessine (Ts) is a synthetic, superheavy radioactive element with the atomic number 117, classified as a transuranium element due to its atomic number exceeding that of uranium (92). First produced in 2010 by a collaborative team from Russian and US institutions, tennessine was formed by bombarding berkelium-249 with calcium-48 atoms. Its existence was confirmed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in January 2016, and it was officially named in June 2016 to honor the state of Tennessee, which hosts significant research facilities related to superheavy elements.
Tennessine is located in Group 17 of the periodic table, positioned below astatine and adjacent to livermorium and oganesson in period 7. While only a handful of atoms have been synthesized, it is theorized to be a solid at room temperature and potentially exhibits a dark metallic color. The most stable isotope of tennessine, with an atomic mass of 294, has a half-life of approximately eighty milliseconds, primarily decaying through alpha decay. Given its radioactivity and the limited quantities produced, tennessine is primarily of interest for research, necessitating careful handling by qualified experts. The various predicted oxidation states and other physical and chemical properties remain areas for further investigation.
Subject Terms
Tennessine (Ts)
- Element Symbol: Ts
- Atomic Number: 117
- Atomic Mass: [294]
- Group # in Periodic Table: 17
- Group Name: No information
- Period in Periodic Table: 7
- Block of Periodic Table: p-block
- Discovered by: Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia (2010)
Tennessine is an artificially created, superheavy radioactive element whose chemical symbol is Ts. It has an atomic number of 117. It is a transuranium element. Transuranium elements are those whose atomic numbers are larger than that of uranium—its number is 92. Ununseptium (Uus), as it was unofficially known until 2016, means "117" in Latin (that is, "one-one-seven"); it is also known as element 117. In the periodic table, it is placed in Group 17, which comprises the halogen elements. Tennessine is located below astatine (atomic number 85) and between livermorium (116) and oganesson (118) in row 7, the actinide-series row. Because it falls in this row, its period number is 7. It is also a p-block element.
Tennessine does not occur naturally in the environment. It was first produced by a team of Russian and US scientists in 2010. Their work was a collaboration conducted by scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia, and the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. Six atoms of element 117 were formed when twenty-two milligrams of berkelium-249 were bombarded with atoms of calcium-48 in the cyclotron at the JINR. Scientists announced the production of five atoms with atomic weight 293 and one atom with atomic weight 294. Similar experiments were repeated by the teams in 2012 and by a group of German American scientists at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, in 2014. In January 2016, the IUPAC confirmed the existence of the element. That June, it approved the permanent name of tennessine and its symbol, Ts, in honor of the US state that is home to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the superheavy-element research facilities at University of Tennessee–Knoxville, and Vanderbilt University.
Physical Properties
Since only small quantities of tennessine have been produced, not much is known about the element. Tennessine has an atomic mass of 294. The standard state of an element is defined as its state at 298 kelvins (K), or 25 degrees Celsius. It is theorized that tennessine is a solid at this temperature. Its color is unknown, but the element is predicted to be a dark metallic color. Several other properties of tennessine still remain to be studied—for example, its melting point, boiling point, specific gravity, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity.
Chemical Properties
The most common oxidation states of tennessine are predicted to be +5, +3, +1, and –1. Each oxidation state has its characteristic spectrum. Tennessine’s electron configuration is [Rn]5f146d107s27p5. Tennessine has two isotopes with known half-lives and two with unknown half-lives. The most stable isotope is tennessine-294, with a half-life of about eighty milliseconds. It decays through alpha decay. Tennessine’s other isotopes are expected to decay through both alpha decay and spontaneous fission.
Applications
Because tennessine is not a naturally occurring element, it has to be synthesized. Only small quantities of this element have been synthesized. As a result, it is currently of interest for research purposes only. Since it is a radioactive element, extreme care should be taken to ensure that it is handled only by experts who are taking the necessary precautions.
Bibliography
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