The periodic table now has its seventh row completed with the introduction of four new chemical elements. The elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, discovered by scientists in Japan, Russia and US are the first to be added to the table since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were added. Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev produced the first true iteration of the table in 1869. The new additions were formally verified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry on December 30, 2015.
The body announced that a team of Russian and American researchers had provided sufficient evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118, BBC News reported. Japanese team at the Riken Institute was awarded credit for the discovery of element 113 by the IUPAC.
“The chemistry community is eager to see its most cherished table finally being completed down to the seventh row. IUPAC has now initiated the process of formalising names and symbols for these elements,” said Professor Jan Reedijk, president of the inorganic chemistry division of IUPAC. The teams responsible for the discoveries have been invited to come up with permanent names and chemical symbols for the now-confirmed elements. The proposed names and symbols will be checked by the Inorganic Chemistry Div-ision of IUPAC for consistency, translatability into other languages, possible prior historic use for other cases. New elements can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property or a scientist. After Divisional acceptance, the names and two-letter symbols will be presented for public review for five months, before the highest body of IUPAC, the Council, will make a final decision on the names of these new elements and their two-letter symbols and their introduction into the periodic table.
