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The synthetic elements at the end of the periodic table

Nature Synthesis volume 1, pages 105–106 (2022)Cite this article

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Chemical synthesis typically draws on the roughly 90 elements found in nature and transforms them into fantastic things, which serve all imaginable needs of humankind. However, there are more than just these 90 elements in the periodic table. The synthesis of the heaviest elements, one atom at a time, is discussed here.

When going beyond uranium, the number of catalogues featuring these exotic beasts gets much smaller. You’d go to great lengths to obtain a precious sample of neptunium, curium or californium, and then, most likely, you will be using up this sample for the rest of your career. These elements are synthesized by bathing uranium in an intense neutron field for an extended time3. The neutral particles fly into the uranium nuclei, and some undergo absorption, transmuting the standard uranium-238 nuclei into uranium-239 nuclei. These heavier nuclei are unstable and convert a neutron into a proton producing a neptunium nucleus. Repeating this process has allowed researchers to climb up the elemental ladder to plutonium, americium, curium, and so on. Although this process is efficient for early transuranium elements, competing processes such as a neutron inducing the splitting of the heavy nucleus into two lighter fragments leads to ever diminishing yields of this nuclear synthesis of heavy elements. Once we reach berkelium – element 97 – a new problem comes into play: the produced and isolated nuclei transform spontaneously into the next heavier element, californium. While this is great for those using californium, it is less so for those interested in berkelium. Some ten milligrams is the maximum amount that current techniques are capable of producing in one go and after ten years, only a few micrograms of this sample will be left. The heaviest elements where we can express world supply in a term containing “grams” are einsteinium (μg scale) and fermium (pg scale, roughly 109 atoms) — elements 99 and 100 respectively3.

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Fig. 1: The periodic table of the elements highlighting the transuranium elements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry – TRIGA Site, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

    Christoph E. Düllmann

  2. SHE Chemistry Department, GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt, Germany

    Christoph E. Düllmann

  3. Superheavy Element Chemistry Research Section, Helmholtz Institute Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Christoph E. Düllmann

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  1. Christoph E. Düllmann
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Correspondence to Christoph E. Düllmann.

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Düllmann, C.E. The synthetic elements at the end of the periodic table. Nat Synth 1, 105–106 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-022-00027-2

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