Darmstadtium ( Ds ) - The 100th Element has Officially been Named Darmstadtium - News Item

At the 42^nd General Assembly of The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the 110^th element was officially named Darmstadtium, and given the chemical symbol Ds.

Darmstadtium’s existence was confirmed in 2001, after having been first synthesised in 1994. It was created by Hofmann et al at the Gessellschaft fur Schswerionenforschung mbH in Darmstadt in Germany, where the name was derived from. Furthermore, it continues the tradition of naming newly discovered elements after the place that they were discovered.

It was created by the fusion-evaporation using a ⁶²Ni beam on an isotopically enriched ²⁰⁸Pb target which produced four chains of alpha emitting nuclides. The reaction can be summarised by:

²⁰⁸₈₂Pb + ⁶²₂₈Ni --> ²⁶⁹110 (0.17ms) + ¹₀n

The heaviest naturally occurring elements is uranium with atomic number 92. The first man-made element was created in 1939 with Darmstadtium being the most recently discovered.

Posted August 18^th, 2003