Updating The Periodic Table

More than 10 years after their first identification, elements 114 and 116 now have names: flerovium (Fl) and livermorium (Lv), respectively. The International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) this week approved the names, which were selected by the discovering teams.

Flerovium pays tribute to the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, in Dubna, Russia, where element 114 was first identified in 1999. Livermorium pays tribute to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in Livermore, Calif., where scientists sighted element 116 in 2000. Scientists at the Livermore facility retracted a 1999 sighting of element 116 after one of the team members was found to have falsified data.

Last year, an IUPAC and International Union of Pure & Applied Physics joint committee officially gave the elements a place on the periodic table (C&EN, June 13, 2011, page 33). IUPAC will publish the new names in the July issue of Pure & Applied Chemistry. For years, the teams in Dubna and Livermore have worked together and separately to discover and confirm the existence of other superheavy elements in addition to flerovium and livermorium. In 2002, scientists at both sites observed element 118. The new names honor, in part, “the collaboration that has occurred between scientists” in Russia and the U.S., says William H. Goldstein, associate director of LLNL’s Physical & Life Sciences Directorate.