Ununoctium

Atomic Number : 118

Atomic Symbol : Uuo

Atomic Weight : [294]

Melting Point : Unknown

Boiling Point : Unknown Word origin: Means one-one-eight (its atomic number) in Latin.

Discovery: Ununoctium was discovered in 2002 by Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia. Three years prior, in 1999, the team at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs in California published a paper announcing the discovery of element 118, but their results could not be replicated and the team retracted their paper. In 2006, ununoctium was officially announced by the Dubna team and by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory team, who had been working with the Dubna scientists.

Properties of ununoctium

Ununoctium is a radioactive, artificially produced element about which little is known. It is expected to be a gas and is classified as a non-metal. It is a member of the noble gas group.

Ununoctium has one known isotope, 294Uuo, with a half-life of about 0.89 milliseconds. Through alpha decay, it turns into 290Lv (livermorium-290).

The atomic weight for manmade transuranium elements is based on the longest-lived isotope. These atomic weights should be considered provisional since a new isotope with a longer half-life could be produced in the future.

The Russian scientists who produced ununoctium bombarded atoms of californium with ions of calcium for 1,080 hours. This resulted in three atoms of ununoctium.

Uses of ununoctium

Since only a few atoms of ununoctium have ever been made, it has no practical uses outside of scientific study.