TECH

Periodic table may gain new row for the first time in history
A team of scientists in Japan has just started one of the most exciting projects in physics in recent times: the search for element 119 of the periodic table, "never seen and never created in the history of the universe," said physicist Hideto Enyo, leader of the initiative .The new element, temporarily baptized as ununennio (one, one, nine, in Latin), would inaugurate a new line - it would be the eighth - in the periodic table proposed in 1869 by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. The order of the first column, recited in color by any student, would look like this: hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium, francium and ununennium.The theory is simple: the 23 protons of the vanadium added to the 96 of the curio would create a superheavy element with 119 protonsEnyo commands Nishina's laboratory at the Riken Research Center, a particle accelerator located in the vicinity of Tokyo. In the lab, scientists plan to shoot bundles of vanadium, a metal, against a curio target, a heavier element that does not naturally exist in the Earth's environment. The theory is simple: the nucleus of the vanadium atom has 23 protons. The Curium has 96. United, would create a superheavy element with 119 protons. But it is not so easy.
"We are all dust of the stars," remembers the nuclear physicist Jose Luis Taín, paraphrasing the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan. Taín's team, which has no stake in element 119 search, leads another Riken experiment to investigate how the heavy elements in the universe are formed. The lightest ones, such as hydrogen (a proton) and helium (two protons), were formed immediately after the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago. The others, even iron, came from a nuclear fusion within the stars. But after the iron, with 26 protons, the origin is more confusing.

Nishina Laboratory

"We believe that to form elements heavier than iron, explosive events such as supernovae or neutron star fusions are necessary," says Taín, a researcher at the Institute of Corpuscular Physics in Paterna (Valencia). ). In these cosmic cataclysms, a rapid neutron capture process occurs, which, when disintegrated, forms protons. This would create, in a few seconds, heavier and heavier elements such as gold (79), lead (82) and uranium (92). Taín's experiment, called Briken, tries to imitate these stellar tangles in the laboratory of Japan.This rapid neutron capture process, however, would be suspended around element 110, according to Taín, citing current theoretical predictions. If they are correct, element 119, as the scientist Enyo claims, was never created in the universe. Never.To form heavier elements than iron, cosmic cataclysms are needed, such as neutron star fusionsThe heaviest element naturally found on Earth is plutonium, with 94 protons. From that point, the nuclei are not stable enough. The last synthesized elements - nihônio (113), moscovio (115), tennessino (117) and oganessono (118) - are very radioactive and existed for a few thousandths of a second in a laboratory."We hope to find element 119 in a few years," says Enyo enthusiastically. "We have started the hunt, although we are still at a very preliminary stage," he acknowledges. The Japanese physicist knows that other prestigious scientific teams have already failed to search for element 119. The GSI Helmholtz Center in Darmstadt, Germany, attempted in 2012 by firing a titanium beam (22) against a Berkelium target (97 ) , unsuccessfully. "We still do not know what kind of combination of beams and targets will be best," admits Enyo.Why spend so much time on expensive experiments to synthesize an element for a few milliseconds? "Because it is very exciting to discover a new element, especially the 119, which will be the first of the eighth row of the periodic table," concludes the Japanese physicist, summing up the curious spirit of basic science.German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered uranium in 1789. The name was inspired by the planet Uranus, which had first been observed a few years earlier. Uranium is the oldest element in the seventh row of the periodic table. If in 1789 Klaproth had been asked "why do we want this?" He could not have imagined that nuclear power plants would produce 17 percent of the world's electricity with the oldest element in the seventh line.

Emanuel Ansede, Espanha