Einsteinium: Chemists create and capture the elusive element discovered due to the hydrogen bomb

by

Einsteinium, the 99th evasive element in the periodic table, was created and captured, allowing some of its properties to be characterized for the first time.

It does not happen naturally on Earth, the so-called “synthetic element” was first discovered among the remains of the first hydrogen bomb in 1952.

Since then, very few experiments with einsteinium have been undertaken, as it is extremely radioactive and extremely difficult to produce.

U.S. researchers, however, have used state-of-the-art technology to create 250 nanograms of the element.

This basic property determines how einsteinium will bind to other atoms and molecules and is essential for understanding the types of chemical interactions it can have.

Einsteinium - the evasive element 99 on the periodic table - was created and captured, allowing some of its properties to be characterized for the first time

Einsteinium – the evasive element 99 on the periodic table – was created and captured, allowing some of its properties to be characterized for the first time

Just as it does not occur naturally on earth, the so-called

Just as it does not occur naturally on earth, the so-called “synthetic element” was first discovered among the remains of the first hydrogen bomb (pictured), codenamed “Ivy Mike”, in 1952.

“Not much is known about einsteinium,” said paper author and heavyweight chemist Rebecca Abergel of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

“It is a remarkable achievement that we managed to work with this small amount of material and make inorganic chemistry.

“It is significant because the more we understand [einsteinium’s] chemical behavior, the more we can apply this understanding for the development of new materials or new technologies. ”

This, she explained, could help not only find applications for direct einsteinium, but also the rest of actinides – the block of 15 metallic and radioactive elements with atomic numbers between 89 and 103.

At the same time, new findings could also help chemists identify new trends in the elements that make up the periodic table.

In their study, Professor Abergel and colleagues produced their einsteinium sample in the so-called high-flow isotope reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, one of the few facilities in the world capable of producing the element.

The material was made by bombarding the curion with neutral – another radioactive element in the actinide series – to trigger a long chain of nuclear reactions that eventually produces the desired einsteinium.

Making significant amounts of pure einsteinium, however, is extraordinarily difficult, and the team’s sample ended up being contaminated with a California.

This prevented them from using X-ray crystallography – the gold standard for obtaining structural information on highly radioactive molecules – on their sample, forcing them to develop new approaches and tools for studying einstein.

A second problem arose as a result of COVID-19, a pandemic that forced the team to close its lab before it could complete many of the planned follow-up experiments on the sample.

Even though they produced one of the more stable isotopes of einsteinium, it still had only a “half-life” – the time it takes for half of the material to decompose into something else – of 276 days, which means that much of the sample their disappeared in time they returned.

EINSTEINIUM: BASICS

Pictured is a 300 microgram sample of einsteinium held in a quartz vial

Pictured is a 300 microgram sample of einsteinium held in a quartz vial

Einstein is a soft, silver metallic element with the symbol “Es” and an atomic number of 99 (ie the nucleus contains 99 protons).

Like all other elements in the so-called “actinide series”, it is extremely radioactive.

When seen in the dark (as seen in the image on the left), einsteinium samples are seen as shining in blue.

It was first detected following the first hydrogen bomb in 1952.

As a so-called “synthetic element”, einsteinium is not naturally found on Earth. Currently, it has not found any application other than basic scientific research.

It was named in honor of the physicist Albert Einstein.

Since then, very few experiments with einsteinium have been undertaken, as it is extremely radioactive and extremely difficult to produce. U.S. researchers (pictured), however, used state-of-the-art technology to create 250 nanograms of the element.

Since then, very few experiments with einsteinium have been undertaken, as it is extremely radioactive and extremely difficult to produce. U.S. researchers (pictured), however, used state-of-the-art technology to create 250 nanograms of the element.

However, the researchers were able to subject the einsteinium sample to luminescence and X-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis – revealing both the binding distance and other properties of the element.

“Determining the bonding distance may not seem interesting, but it’s the first thing you want to know about how a metal binds to other molecules,” said Professor Abergel.

Understanding how atoms in an einsteinium-containing molecule could be arranged can give scientists an idea of ​​the chemical properties of these molecules and can improve the understanding of chemical trends in the periodic table.

“By obtaining this data, we gain a better and broader understanding of how the entire series of actinides behave,” said Professor Abergel.

“And in that series, we have elements or isotopes that are useful for the production of nuclear or radiopharmaceutical energy.”

The findings, Professor Abergel explained, could help not only find applications for einsteinium directly, but also the rest of actinides - the block of 15 metallic and radioactive elements with atomic numbers between 89 and 103 (pictured here in green)

The findings, Professor Abergel explained, could help not only find applications for einsteinium directly, but also the rest of actinides – the block of 15 metallic and radioactive elements with atomic numbers between 89 and 103 (pictured here in green)

Working with einsteinium also teases the possibility of exploring the chemistry beyond the edge of this periodic table and possibly even discovering a completely new element.

“We are really beginning to understand a little better what is happening towards the end of the periodic table, and the next thing is that you could also imagine an einstein target to discover new elements,” explained Professor Abergel.

“Similar to the latest elements discovered in the last 10 years, such as tennessee, which used a target of berkelium, if you could isolate enough pure einsteinium to make a target, you could start looking for other elements.”

This, she added, could bring us closer to the theorized “island of stability”, where nuclear physicists predict that isotopes may have half-lives of minutes or days – as opposed to microseconds or fewer half-lives commonly found among the elements. overloaded.

The full results of the study were published in the journal Nature.

HOW WAS THE PERIODIC TABLE CREATED?

Chemists have always looked for ways to arrange the elements to reflect the similarities between their properties.

The modern periodic table lists the elements in the order of increasing atomic number – the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom.

Historically, however, relative atomic masses have been used by scientists trying to organize the elements.

This was mainly due to the idea that atoms were composed of smaller sub-atomic particles – protons, neutrons and electrons – had not been developed.

However, the basis of the modern periodic table was well established and even used to predict the properties of undiscovered elements long before the concept of atomic number was developed.

Ask most chemists who have discovered the table periodically and you will definitely get the answer Dmitry Mendeleev.

The Russian scientist was the first to publish a version of the table that we recognize today, in 1869, but is it worth all the credit?

A number of other chemists before Mendeleev investigated models in the properties of the elements that were known at the time.

The earliest attempt to classify elements was in 1789, when Antoine Lavoisier grouped elements based on their properties into gases, nonmetals, metals, and earth.

Several other attempts have been made to group elements together in the coming decades.

In 1829, Johann Döbereiner recognized triads of elements with similar chemical properties, such as lithium, sodium, and potassium, and showed that the properties of the middle element can be predicted from the properties of the other two.

It was not until a more accurate list of the atomic masses of the elements became available at a conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1860 that real progress was made toward the discovery of the modern periodic table.

This area of ​​the website celebrates the work of many famous scientists whose quest to learn more about the world we live in and the atoms that make up the things around us have led to the periodic table as we know it today.

Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

.Source