At the 42nd General Assembly in Ottawa, Canada, the IUPAC Council
officially approved the name for element of atomic number 110, to
be known as darmstadtium, with symbol Ds.
In 2001, a joint IUPAC-IUPAP Working Party (JWP) confirmed the
discovery of element of atomic number 110 and this by the collaboration
of Hofmann et al. from the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung
mbH (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany (Pure
Appl. Chem.
73, 959-967 (2001)). The most relevant experiment resulted
from the fusion-evaporation using a 62Ni beam on an isotopically
enriched 208Pb target, which produced four chains of
alpha-emitting nuclides following the presumed formation of 269Uun
+ n. (S. Hofmann et al., Z. Phys. A350, 277-280 (1995)).
In a soon-to-be-published second report, the JWP has re-endorsed
the confirmed synthesis of Ds by the team at GSI led by Sigurd Hofmann.
In accordance with IUPAC procedures, the discoverers at the GSI
were invited to propose a name and symbol for the element to the
Inorganic Chemistry Division. Hofmann's team proposed the name darmstadtium,
with the symbol Ds. This name continues the long-established
tradition of naming an element after the place of its discovery.
IUPAC was formed in 1919 by chemists from industry and academia.
For nearly 85 years, the Union has succeeded in fostering worldwide
communications in the chemical sciences and in uniting academic,
industrial and public sector chemistry in a common language. IUPAC
is recognized as the world authority on chemical nomenclature, terminology,
standardized methods for measurement, atomic weights and many other
critically evaluated data. More information about IUPAC and its
activities is available at www.iupac.org.
For specific questions regarding the discovery and naming of Element
110, contact Prof. John Corish <[email protected]>
or Dr. Gerd Rosenblatt <[email protected]>.
For general questions about IUPAC, contact Laura Abernathy, IUPAC
Communications Specialist <[email protected]>.
<announcement to be published
in Chem.
Int.
Sept. 2003>
>
link to FAQs about
the Chemical Elements or Q&A about
Ds