Darmstadtium

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Darmstadtium is a chemical element. It has been named ununnilium (Uun) or eka-platinum but is now named darmstadtium. It has the symbol Ds. It has the atomic number 110. It is a transuranium element.

Darmstadtium is a radioactive element that does not exist in nature. It has to be made. The isotopes with an atomic mass from 267 to 273 have very short half lifes. The half life of these isotopes is measured in milli seconds. Istopes of darmstadtium with an atomic mass of 279 and 281 were synthesised after the other isotpes. Ds-279 and Ds-281 decay more slowly. The isotope with an atomic mass of 279 has a half life of 180 milliseconds and Ds-281 has a half life of 11.1 seconds.

No uses for darmstadtium are known. What darmstadtium looks like is not known because not enough has been made to see it with human eyesight.

[edit] History

Darmstadtium was first made on November 9, 1994. It was made at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany. The team that made darmstadtium was leda by Dr. Jorge Rigol. Only a few atoms of it were made. It was made by bombarding a lead target with nickel. A nuclear fusion reaction happened and made the element.^[1]

This is shown by the equation below that is the reaction that happened. Pb is the symbol for lead, Ni is the symbol for nickel and n is the symbol for a neutron.

${208 \atop 82}\mathrm{Pb}+{62 \atop 28}\mathrm{Ni}\quad\rightarrow\quad{269 \atop 110}\mathrm{Ds}+{1 \atop 0}\mathrm{n} \;$

The element was named from Darmstadt. Darmstadt is the place of its discovery. The GSI is in Wixhausen, a part of the north of the city of Darmstadt. The new name (darmstadtium) was given to the chemical element by the IUPAC in August 2003.^[2]

[edit] References

↑ Holleman, A. F.; Wiberg, E. "Inorganic Chemistry" Academic Press: San Diego, 2001. ISBN 0-12-352651-5.
↑ IUPAC: Element 110 is named darmstadtium (HTML) Accessed 21 November 2006.