Tennessine is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Ts and atomic number

117. It is the second-heaviest known element and the penultimate element of the 7th
period of the periodic table.

The discovery of tennessine was officially announced in Dubna, Russia, by a

Russian–American collaboration in April 2010, which makes it the most recently
discovered element as of 2022. One of its daughter isotopes was created directly in
2011, partially confirming the results of the experiment. The experiment itself was
repeated successfully by the same collaboration in 2012 and by a joint German–
American team in May 2014. In December 2015, the Joint Working Party of the
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International
Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), which evaluates claims of discovery of
new elements, recognized the element and assigned the priority to the Russian–
American team. In June 2016, the IUPAC published a declaration stating that the
discoverers had suggested the name tennessine after Tennessee, United States, a
name which was officially adopted in November 2016.[a]

Tennessine may be located in the "island of stability", a concept that explains why
some superheavy elements are more stable compared to an overall trend of decreasing
stability for elements beyond bismuth on the periodic table. The synthesized
tennessine atoms have lasted tens and hundreds of milliseconds. In the periodic
table, tennessine is expected to be a member of group 17, all other members of
which are halogens.[b] Some of its properties may differ significantly from those
of the halogens due to relativistic effects. As a result, tennessine is expected to
be a volatile metal that neither forms anions nor achieves high oxidation states. A
few key properties, such as its melting and boiling points and its first ionization
energy, are nevertheless expected to follow the periodic trends of the halogens.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 History
2.1 Pre-discovery
2.2 Discovery
2.3 Confirmation
2.4 Naming
3 Predicted properties
3.1 Nuclear stability and isotopes
3.2 Atomic and physical
3.3 Chemical
4 Notes
5 References
6 Bibliography
Introduction
This section is transcluded from Introduction to the heaviest elements. (edit |
history)
See also: Superheavy element § Introduction
A graphic depiction of a nuclear fusion reaction
A graphic depiction of a nuclear fusion reaction. Two nuclei fuse into one,
emitting a neutron. Thus far, reactions that created new elements were similar,
with the only possible difference that several singular neutrons sometimes were
released, or none at all.
External video
video icon Visualization of unsuccessful nuclear fusion, based on calculations by
the Australian National University[9]
The heaviest[c] atomic nuclei are created in nuclear reactions that combine two
other nuclei of unequal size[d] into one; roughly, the more unequal the two nuclei
in terms of mass, the greater the possibility that the two react.[15] The material
made of the heavier nuclei is made into a target, which is then bombarded by the
beam of lighter nuclei. Two nuclei can only fuse into one if they approach each
other closely enough; normally, nuclei (all positively charged) repel each other
due to electrostatic repulsion. The strong interaction can overcome this repulsion
but only within a very short distance from a nucleus; beam nuclei are thus greatly
accelerated in order to make such repulsion insignificant compared to the velocity
of the beam nucleus.[16] Coming close alone is not enough for two nuclei to fuse:
when two nuclei approach each other, they usually remain together for approximately
10−20 seconds and then part ways (not necessarily in the same composition as before
the reaction) rather than form a single nucleus.[16][17] If fusion does occur, the
temporary merger—termed a compound nucleus—is an excited state. To lose its
excitation energy and reach a more stable state, a compound nucleus either fissions
or ejects one or several neutrons,[e] which carry away the energy. This occurs in
approximately 10−16 seconds after the initial collision.[18][f]

The beam passes through the target and reaches the next chamber, the separator; if
a new nucleus is produced, it is carried with this beam.[21] In the separator, the
newly produced nucleus is separated from other nuclides (that of the original beam
and any other reaction products)[g] and transferred to a surface-barrier detector,
which stops the nucleus. The exact location of the upcoming impact on the detector
is marked; also marked are its energy and the time of the arrival.[21] The transfer
takes about 10−6 seconds; in order to be detected, the nucleus must survive this
long.[24] The nucleus is recorded again once its decay is registered, and the
location, the energy, and the time of the decay are measured.[21]

Stability of a nucleus is provided by the strong interaction. However, its range is

very short; as nuclei become larger, their influence on the outermost nucleons
(protons and neutrons) weakens. At the same time, the nucleus is torn apart by
electrostatic repulsion between protons, as it has unlimited range.[25] Nuclei of
the heaviest elements are thus theoretically predicted[26] and have so far been
observed[27] to primarily decay via decay modes that are caused by such repulsion:
alpha decay and spontaneous fission;[h] these modes are predominant for nuclei of
superheavy elements. Alpha decays are registered by the emitted alpha particles,
and the decay products are easy to determine before the actual decay; if such a
decay or a series of consecutive decays produces a known nucleus, the original
product of a reaction can be determined arithmetically.[i] Spontaneous fission,
however, produces various nuclei as products, so the original nuclide cannot be
determined from its daughters.[j]

The information available to physicists aiming to synthesize one of the heaviest

elements is thus the information collected at the detectors: location, energy, and
time of arrival of a particle to the detector, and those of its decay. The
physicists analyze this data and seek to conclude that it was indeed caused by a
new element and could not have been caused by a different nuclide than the one
claimed. Often, provided data is insufficient for a conclusion that a new element
was definitely created and there is no other explanation for the observed effects;
errors in interpreting data have been made.[k]

History
See also: Timeline of chemical element discoveries
Pre-discovery
In December 2004, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) team in Dubna,
Moscow Oblast, Russia, proposed a joint experiment with the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States, to synthesize element 117
— so called for the 117 protons in its nucleus. Their proposal involved fusing a
berkelium (element 97) target and a calcium (element 20) beam, conducted via
bombardment of the berkelium target with calcium nuclei:[39] this would complete a
set of experiments done at the JINR on the fusion of actinide targets with a
calcium-48 beam, which had thus far produced the new elements 113–116 and 118. The
ORNL—then the world's only producer of berkelium—could not then provide the
element, as they had temporarily ceased production,[39] and re-initiating it would
be too costly.[40] Plans to synthesize element 117 were suspended in favor of the
confirmation of element 118, which had been produced earlier in 2002 by bombarding
a californium target with calcium.[41] The required berkelium-249 is a by-product
in californium-252 production, and obtaining the required amount of berkelium was
an even more difficult task than obtaining that of californium, as well as costly:
It would cost around 3.5 million dollars, and the parties agreed to wait for a
commercial order of californium production, from which berkelium could be
extracted.[40][42]

The JINR team sought to use berkelium because calcium-48, the isotope of calcium
used in the beam, has 20 protons and 28 neutrons, making a neutron–proton ratio of
1.4; and it is the lightest stable or near-stable nucleus with such a large neutron
excess. The second-lightest such nucleus, palladium-110 (46 protons, 64 neutrons,
neutron–proton ratio of 1.391), is much heavier. Thanks to the neutron excess, the
resulting nuclei were expected to be heavier and closer to the sought-after island
of stability.[l] Of the aimed for 117 protons, calcium has 20, and thus they needed
to use berkelium, which has 97 protons in its nucleus.[43]

In February 2005, the leader of the JINR team — Yuri Oganessian — presented a
colloquium at ORNL. Also in attendance were representatives of Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, who had previously worked with JINR on the discovery of
elements 113–116 and 118, and Joseph Hamilton of Vanderbilt University, a
collaborator of Oganessian.[45]

Hamilton checked if the ORNL high-flux reactor produced californium for a

commercial order: The required berkelium could be obtained as a by-product. He
learned that it did not and there was no expectation for such an order in the
immediate future. Hamilton kept monitoring the situation, making the checks once in
a while. (Later, Oganessian referred to Hamilton as "the father of 117" for doing
this work.)[45]

Discovery
ORNL resumed californium production in spring 2008. Hamilton noted the restart
during the summer and made a deal on subsequent extraction of berkelium[46] (the
price was about $600,000).[15] During a September 2008 symposium at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, Tennessee celebrating his 50th year on the Physics
faculty, he introduced Oganessian to James Roberto (then the deputy director for
science and technology at ORNL).[47] They established a collaboration among JINR,
ORNL, and Vanderbilt;[42] the team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LLNL) in Livermore, California, U.S., was soon invited to join.[48]

A very small sample of a blue liquid in a plastic pipette held by a hand wearing
heavy protection equipment
The berkelium target used for the synthesis (in solution)
In November 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy, which had oversight over the
reactor in Oak Ridge, allowed the scientific use of the extracted berkelium.[48]
The production lasted 250 days and ended in late December 2008,[49] resulting in 22
milligrams of berkelium, enough to perform the experiment.[50] In January 2009, the
berkelium was removed from ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor;[48] it was
subsequently cooled for 90 days and then processed at ORNL's Radiochemical
Engineering and Development Center to separate and purify the berkelium material,
which took another 90 days.[42] Its half-life is only 330 days: after that time,
half the berkelium produced would have decayed. Because of this, the berkelium
target had to be quickly transported to Russia; for the experiment to be viable, it
had to be completed within six months of its departure from the United States.[42]
The target was packed into five lead containers to be flown from New York to
Moscow.[42]
Russian customs officials twice refused to let the target enter the country because
of missing or incomplete paperwork. Over the span of a few days, the target
traveled over the Atlantic Ocean five times.[42] On its arrival in Russia in June
2009, the berkelium was immediately transferred to Research Institute of Atomic
Reactors (RIAR) in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Oblast, where it was deposited as a 300-
nanometer-thin layer on a titanium film.[49] In July 2009, it was transported to
Dubna,[49] where it was installed in the particle accelerator at the JINR.[50] The
calcium-48 beam was generated by chemically extracting the small quantities of
calcium-48 present in naturally occurring calcium, enriching it 500 times.[citation
needed] This work was done in the closed town of Lesnoy, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia.
[48]

The experiment began in late July 2009.[48] In January 2010, scientists at the
Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions announced internally that they had detected
the decay of a new element with atomic number 117 via two decay chains: one of an
odd–odd isotope undergoing 6 alpha decays before spontaneous fission, and one of an
odd–even isotope undergoing 3 alpha decays before fission.[51] The obtained data
from the experiment was sent to the LLNL for further analysis.[52] On 9 April 2010,
an official report was released in the journal Physical Review Letters identifying
the isotopes as 294117 and 293117, which were shown to have half-lives on the order
of tens or hundreds of milliseconds. The work was signed by all parties involved in
the experiment to some extent: JINR, ORNL, LLNL, RIAR, Vanderbilt, the University
of Tennessee (Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.), and the University of Nevada (Las Vegas,
Nevada, U.S.), which provided data analysis support.[53] The isotopes were formed
as follows:[54][m]

249
97Bk
+ 48
20Ca
→ 297117* → 294117 + 3 1
0
n
(1 event)
249
97Bk
+ 48
20Ca
→ 297117* → 293117 + 4 1
0
n
(5 events)
Confirmation

Decay chain of the atoms produced in the original experiment. The figures near the
arrows describe experimental (black) and theoretical (blue) values for the lifetime
and energy of each decay. Lifetimes may be converted to half-lives by multiplying
by ln 2.[54]
All daughter isotopes (decay products) of element 117 were previously unknown;[54]
therefore, their properties could not be used to confirm the claim of discovery. In
2011, when one of the decay products (289115) was synthesized directly, its
properties matched those measured in the claimed indirect synthesis from the decay
of element 117.[55] The discoverers did not submit a claim for their findings in
2007–2011 when the Joint Working Party was reviewing claims of discoveries of new
elements.[56]

The Dubna team repeated the experiment in 2012, creating seven atoms of element 117
and confirming their earlier synthesis of element 118 (produced after some time
when a significant quantity of the berkelium-249 target had beta decayed to
californium-249). The results of the experiment matched the previous outcome;[7]
the scientists then filed an application to register the element.[citation needed]
In May 2014, a joint German–American collaboration of scientists from the ORNL and
the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany,
claimed to have confirmed discovery of the element.[6][57] The team repeated the
Dubna experiment using the Darmstadt accelerator, creating two atoms of element
117.[6]

In December 2015, the JWP officially recognized the discovery of 293117 on account
of the confirmation of the properties of its daughter 289115,[58] and thus the
listed discoverers — JINR, LLNL, and ORNL — were given the right to suggest an
official name for the element. (Vanderbilt was left off the initial list of
discoverers in an error that was later corrected.)[59]

In May 2016, Lund University (Lund, Scania, Sweden) and GSI cast some doubt on the
syntheses of elements 115 and 117. The decay chains assigned to 289115, the isotope
instrumental in the confirmation of the syntheses of elements 115 and 117, were
found based on a new statistical method to be too different to belong to the same
nuclide with a reasonably high probability. The reported 293117 decay chains
approved as such by the JWP were found to require splitting into individual data
sets assigned to different isotopes of element 117. It was also found that the
claimed link between the decay chains reported as from 293117 and 289115 probably
did not exist. (On the other hand, the chains from the non-approved isotope 294117
were found to be congruent.) The multiplicity of states found when nuclides that
are not even–even undergo alpha decay is not unexpected and contributes to the lack
of clarity in the cross-reactions. This study criticized the JWP report for
overlooking subtleties associated with this issue, and considered it "problematic"
that the only argument for the acceptance of the discoveries of elements 115 and
117 was a link they considered to be doubtful.[60][61]

On 8 June 2017, two members of the Dubna team published a journal article answering
these criticisms, analysing their data on the nuclides 293117 and 289115 with
widely accepted statistical methods, noted that the 2016 studies indicating non-
congruence produced problematic results when applied to radioactive decay: they
excluded from the 90% confidence interval both average and extreme decay times, and
the decay chains that would be excluded from the 90% confidence interval they chose
were more probable to be observed than those that would be included. The 2017
reanalysis concluded that the observed decay chains of 293117 and 289115 were
consistent with the assumption that only one nuclide was present at each step of
the chain, although it would be desirable to be able to directly measure the mass
number of the originating nucleus of each chain as well as the excitation function
of the 243Am + 48Ca reaction.[62]

Naming

Main campus of Hamilton's workplace, Vanderbilt University, one of the institutions

named as co-discoverers of tennessine
Using Mendeleev's nomenclature for unnamed and undiscovered elements, element 117
should be known as eka-astatine. Using the 1979 recommendations by the
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the element was
temporarily called ununseptium (symbol Uus) until its discovery was confirmed and a
permanent name chosen; the temporary name was formed from Latin roots "one", "one",
and "seven", a reference to the element's atomic number 117.[63] Many scientists in
the field called it "element 117", with the symbol E117, (117), or 117.[3]
According to guidelines of IUPAC valid at the moment of the discovery approval, the
permanent names of new elements should have ended in "-ium"; this included element
117, even if the element was a halogen, which traditionally have names ending in "-
ine";[64] however, the new recommendations published in 2016 recommended using the
"-ine" ending for all new group 17 elements.[65]
After the original synthesis in 2010, Dawn Shaughnessy of LLNL and Oganessian
declared that naming was a sensitive question, and it was avoided as far as
possible.[66] However, Hamilton declared that year, "I was crucial in getting the
group together and in getting the 249Bk target essential for the discovery. As a
result of that, I'm going to get to name the element. I can't tell you the name,
but it will bring distinction to the region."[53] (Hamilton teaches at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.) In a 2015 interview, Oganessian, after
telling the story of the experiment, said, "and the Americans named this a tour de
force, they had demonstrated they could do [this] with no margin for error. Well,
soon they will name the 117th element."[67]

In March 2016, the discovery team agreed on a conference call involving

representatives from the parties involved on the name "tennessine" for element 117.
[45] In June 2016, IUPAC published a declaration stating the discoverers had
submitted their suggestions for naming the new elements 115, 117, and 118 to the
IUPAC; the suggestion for the element 117 was tennessine, with a symbol of Ts,
after "the region of Tennessee".[a] The suggested names were recommended for
acceptance by the IUPAC Inorganic Chemistry Division; formal acceptance was set to
occur after a five-month term following publishing of the declaration expires.[68]
In November 2016, the names, including tennessine, were formally accepted. Concerns
that the proposed symbol Ts may clash with a notation for the tosyl group used in
organic chemistry were rejected, following existing symbols bearing such dual
meanings: Ac (actinium and acetyl) and Pr (praseodymium and propyl).[69] The naming
ceremony for moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson was held on 2 March 2017 at the
Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow; a separate ceremony for tennessine alone had
been held at ORNL in January 2017.[70]

Predicted properties