Chemistry students learning the periodic table this semester will encounter four new elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the discoveries Dec. 30.
Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 complete the seventh period, or bottom row, on the table.
The periodic table describes the existence of all known elements in the universe. The arrangement allows scientists to predict how the substances behave in nature.
These newly-found elements only exist in small amounts for a fraction of a second in laboratory settings.
“So to actually test them, the characteristics of them, is very, very, very difficult,” said Robert Killin, a chemistry professor at Arizona Western College.
Killin is interested in how these latest discoveries will fit in with other known elements.
“We’re now at element 118, which located at the bottom of the group of noble gases," Killin said. "And at that point, it leads to the question whether that element is similar to a noble gas or is it more like a metalloid, which is also nearby on the periodic table.”
Scientists in the United States, Japan and Russia made the discoveries, followed by years of repeated experiments to confirm the elements do indeed exist.
IUPAC will publish a review of the results in an upcoming issue of the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry.
The research teams will also submit proposed names and symbols for the new elements.
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