The Next Element: How Chemists are Expanding the Periodic Table

Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 2-3 pm ET

Element tile with a question mark on it.

Nihonium. Moscovium. Tennessine. Oganesson. With these discoveries, IUPAC recognized the last row of the Periodic Table as complete in 2016. In recent years, experiments to measure the properties of these new superheavy elements and discover more have pushed the limits of available technology without producing definitive data. What makes these experiments so difficult?

Join Associate Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University Charles “Cody” M. Folden III as he discusses the challenges that are poised at the bottom of the Periodic Table, including how to determine the chemical properties of an element when only a handful of atoms are available, and why discovering new superheavy elements will likely be very difficult and may require new technology, like a next-generation particle accelerator.

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What You Will Learn

The status of element discovery science
The theoretical description of the nuclear reactions that produce superheavy elements
How the chemical properties of superheavy elements are determined

Additional Resources

Exploring the Superheavy Elements at the End of the Periodic Table - C&EN article by Laura Howes
The Evolving Periodic Table and its Incredible Elements - ACS Program-in-a-Box Broadcast
The Four "New" Elements & How We Got Them - ACS Speaking of Chemistry

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ACS Webinars^® does not endorse any products or services. The views expressed in this presentation are those of the presenters and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the American Chemical Society.