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2019 is the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, marking 150 years since Dimitri Mendeleev ordered the elements into a table. Of course, the table and our understanding of chemical periodicity has evolved in the intervening time, and this collection features research from across those 150 years, showcasing important and interesting research papers from the archive, along with commentaries and multimedia from across the Nature family.
This Collection is editorially independent, produced with financial support from a third party.
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Scientists take nomenclature seriously, but tritium was named in a casual aside. Brett F. Thornton and Shawn C. Burdette discuss the heavy, radioactive hydrogen isotope that is available for purchase online.
Owing to peculiar properties, helium has taken both the main and supporting roles in scientific discoveries over the years. Christine Herman explores just what makes it such a cool element.
Jean-Marie Tarascon ponders on the value of lithium, an element known for about 200 years, whose importance is now fast increasing in view of the promises it holds for energy storage and electric cars.
Although it is mainly known for its toxicity, beryllium possesses an array of properties that makes it attractive for a variety of non-industrial purposes. Ralph Puchta discusses why it is not always best avoided.
Long ago, a global search for borane superfuels led fortuitously to the discovery of carboranes. Ken Wade recalls his own undistinguished part in the space race, and notes how carboranes revitalized boron hydride chemistry and modified our ideas of chemical bonding.
Although first known among chemists for its noxious or lifeless character, nitrogen was later revealed to be involved in many life, and death, processes. Michael Tarselli ponders on this unforeseen characteristic.
Oxygen has contributed to our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth by providing invaluable clues to geological processes — yet it still holds the key to some unsolved mysteries, as Mark H. Thiemens explains.
Herbert Roesky relates how the small, highly electronegative fluorine atom unveiled the chemical reactivity of noble gases and found many practical applications. but it can also render organic compounds highly toxic or pollutants.
Felice Grandinetti ponders on the peculiarity of neon among the noble gases — and whether it should occupy the top-right position in the periodic table.
Sodium, ubiquitous on Earth in living organisms, oceans and minerals — all the way to table salt — may seem like one of the more ordinary elements. Margit S. Müller highlights why we, like the fairytale king, should not take it for granted.
Magnesium is commonly found in rocks and sea water as well as living organisms. Paul Knochel relates how this element has also sparked a great deal of interest among chemists.
Daniel Rabinovich outlines the history, properties and uses of aluminium — one of the most versatile, pervasive and inexpensive metals today, yet it was considered a rare and costly element only 150 years ago.
Mietek Jaroniec reflects on how silicon, whether bonded with other elements in a variety of materials, in high purity for electronic devices, or in its newer 'black silicon' form, continues to be invaluable in many aspects of our lives.
Jonathan R. Nitschke considers how the story of phosphorus, an element that glows without fire, nicely illustrates the pursuit of scientific knowledge — including how such knowledge goes on to serve many purposes, for better or for worse.
Thomas Rauchfuss marvels at the diversity of sulfur reactivity. Although it poisons most industrial catalysts, it adopts many forms in nature and takes on a variety of biological roles — including that of a biocatalyst.
Calcium is found throughout the solar system, the Earth's crust and oceans, and is an essential constituent of cells, shells and bones — yet it is curiously scarce in the upper atmosphere. John Plane ponders on this 25-year-old mystery.
From Earth to the stars and back again, John Emsley surveys the uses, occurrences and mysteries of an element that is playing an increasing role in human affairs.
Andrea Taroni shares his experience with vanadium — a colourful element with a rich chemistry (and physics!) that is emblematic of all transition metals.
Iron has important roles in areas as diverse as physiological processes and industrial activities, but has traditionally been eclipsed by other transition metals in synthesis processes. Carsten Bolm looks at how iron is now also becoming an increasingly sought-after catalyst.
Although reports on the use of nickel can be traced back to 3,500 BC, Catherine Drennan points to a resurgence of interest in nickel-based chemistry in the energy and environmental areas.
Copper, routinely encountered in daily life, may at first glance seem a little unexciting. Tiberiu G. Moga relates how science, however, has not overlooked its promise.
Elements that are widespread in nature and have been used for thousands of years are not typically deemed exciting, but Anders Lennartson argues that we shouldn't take zinc for granted.
Shawn C. Burdette and Brett F. Thornton explore how germanium developed from a missing element in Mendeleev's periodic table to an enabler for the information age, while retaining a nomenclature oddity.
If ever there was an element that epitomizes the notion that chemicals might be good or bad depending on their use, arsenic must be it. Katherine Haxton explains why.
Russell Boyd ponders on how selenium — despite close similarities with its neighbours of the chalcogen family, sulfur and tellurium — continues to reveal chemical and biological activities of its own.
Many chemical elements behave quite differently depending on the compound they are found in, but Matt Rattley argues that bromine does so in a particularly striking manner.
Matic Lozinšek and Gary J. Schrobilgen consider krypton — namesake of Superman's home planet — its superoxidant compounds, and their roles in coaxing elements into their highest oxidation states.
The story of the last element to be discovered out of the first 92 catalogued in the periodic table is told by Eric Scerri, who reminds us that technetium can be found a little closer to home than many of us might think.
From humble beginnings in Siberia, ruthenium has blossomed into an incredibly interesting and useful element. Simon Higgins looks at its role in past — and perhaps future — Nobel Prize-winning discoveries.
You would be forgiven if you thought the most important element in an organic transformation was carbon. Matthew Hartings argues that, for just over half a century in many of chemistry's most renowned organic reactions, it has actually been palladium.
Katharina M. Fromm explains how, as well as catalysis and jewellery, silver serves a myriad of medicinal applications — some of which are even behind poetic traditions such as throwing coins in wishing wells.
Catherine Renouf describes how indium went from being a rather inconspicuous element to one whose role as a component of high-technology devices and gadgets may deplete its worldwide resources.
Tin has been ubiquitous throughout the course of human history, from Bronze Age tools to lithium-ion battery components, yet Michael A. Tarselli warns it should not be deemed pedestrian. Its tendency to linger in human tissues presents a dangerous side that steers researchers towards greener chemistries.
Jim Ibers takes a look at the intriguing structures and bonding found in tellurium and its compounds, and considers their uses in a diversity of fields ranging from metallurgy to electronics.
Pierangelo Metrangolo and Giuseppe Resnati celebrate the bicentenary of the discovery of iodine — a good time to also bring to its conclusion an international project that aims to define and categorize halogen bonding.
Like all noble gases, xenon is colourless, odourless and inflammable — but it is also more reactive, and much rarer, than its lighter relatives. Ivan Dmochowski ponders how xenon, though initially slow to earn a spot in the periodic table, is now at the forefront of advances in science and technology.
Eric Ansoborlo and Richard Wayne Leggett discuss the chemical and radiological characteristics that make caesium a captivating element but also a troublesome contaminant.
Katharina M. Fromm relates how barium and its ores went from a magical, glowing species that attracted witches and alchemists to components in a variety of compounds that are key parts of modern life.
Lanthanum is the first lanthanide — or the last. Or it’s not a lanthanide at all. In any case, Brett Thornton and Shawn Burdette are sure that it’s an element that might or might not be in group three of the periodic table.
From grand challenges of nineteenth century chemistry to powerful technology in small packages, Brett F. Thornton and Shawn C. Burdette explain why neodymium is the twin element discovered twice by two Carls.
Stuart Cantrill explains why looking to the heavens for element 61 — named after the Titan who stole fire from the gods — could extend the periodic table.
Jean-Claude Bünzli sheds light on why europium — an element that is neither abundant in the Earth's crust nor involved in biological processes — has nevertheless attracted a great deal of interest from chemists.
Beginning with its origins as the archetypal and eponymously elusive rare-earth element, Dante Gatteschi explains why dysprosium and other lanthanides have cornered the market in molecular magnetism.
Alasdair Skelton and Brett F. Thornton examine the twisting path through the several discoveries of ytterbium, from the eighteenth century to the present.
Shawn C. Burdette and Brett F. Thornton examine hafnium’s emergence from ores containing a seemingly identical element to become both a chemical oddity and an essential material for producing nuclear energy.
Giovanni Baccolo relates tales of tantalum, an element known, and named, for its inertness, yet one that holds some surprises, such as a naturally occurring nuclear isomer.
Pilar Goya, Nazario Martín and Pascual Román relate how element 74 can be found in lamp filaments or weapon parts and also in literature, and continues to serve many purposes — no matter which of its two names it is given.
Rhenium and technetium not only share the same group in the periodic table, but also have some common history relating to how they were — or indeed weren't — discovered. Eric Scerri explains.
Gregory Girolami recounts how element 76 beat a close competitor to the title of densest known metal and went on to participate in Nobel Prize-winning reactions.
As a rare and precious metal that is also resistant to wear and tarnish, platinum is known to be particularly well-suited to jewellery. Vivian Yam reflects on how, beyond its prestigious image, platinum has also found its way into a variety of fields ranging from the petrochemical to the pharmaceutical industry.
Catalysis using gold has fast become a major research field with great potential, and many new discoveries are being made. Graham Hutchings reflects on how this has come about.
Somobrata Acharya explores the history, properties and uses of lead — an ancient metal that is still very relevant to today's technologies, but should be used with caution.
Ram Mohan looks at how bismuth — a remarkably harmless element among the toxic heavy metals in the periodic table — has sparked interest in areas varying from medicinal to industrial chemistry.
D. Scott Wilbur points out the difficulty in studying the transient element astatine, and the need to understand its basic chemical nature to help in the development of targeted radiotherapy agents.
Naturally scarce but synthetically accessible, Gauthier J.-P. Deblonde and Rebecca J. Abergel discuss element 89 and its emergence as a candidate radio-theranostic metal for cancer treatment.
Richard Wilson relates how the rare, highly radioactive, highly toxic element protactinium puzzled chemists for a long time, and was discovered and named twice from two different isotopes before finding its place in fundamental research.
Uranium is best known, and feared, for its involvement in nuclear energy. Marisa J. Monreal and Paula L. Diaconescu take a look at how its unique combination of properties is now increasingly attracting the attention of chemists.
Jim Ibers talks about neptunium, an element that has remained largely unnoticed despite the flurry of activity devoted to its neighbours in the periodic table, uranium and plutonium.
For historical reasons, plutonium brings to mind nuclear weapons. Jan Hartmann brings another side of element 94 to attention, which features an upcoming trip to its eponymous celestial body.
Made under a cloak of wartime secrecy, yet announced in the most public of ways — a radioactive element that governments insist we take into our homes. Ben Still explains how element 95 is one of real contradiction.
From secretive beginnings to serving in missions on Mars, Rebecca J. Abergel and Eric Ansoborlo take a look at the glowing mark curium has left on contemporary science and technology.
The first new element produced after the Second World War has led a rather peaceful life since entering the period table — until it became the target of those producing superheavy elements, as Andreas Trabesinger describes.
Discovered during secret testing by the United States, Joanne Redfern tells us about element 99 and why its namesake cautioned against the very technology that led to its creation.
Brett F. Thornton and Shawn C. Burdette relate how element 100 was first identified in a nuclear weapons test, but that was classified information, so researchers had to 'discover' it again using other methods.
The first element to be identified one atom at a time was named after the main architect of the modern periodic table. This seemingly straightforward etymological choice illustrates how scientific recognition can eclipse geopolitical tensions, says Anne Pichon.
Alfred Nobel's eponymous element, nobelium, was 'first' discovered either in the 1950s or 1960s, in the USSR, Sweden or the USA. Brett F. Thornton and Shawn C. Burdette delve into the ensuing decades of internecine strife over the discovery of element 102.
From its scarcity to political intrigue over naming conventions, element 108’s story describes how international cooperation overcame the limits of nuclear science, says Michael Tarselli.
Adrian Dingle tells the story of how the name of element 109 represents the lasting recognition that one of the greatest nuclear physicists was in danger of never receiving.
In the search for superheavy elements, element 112 was a stepping stone towards the 'islands of stability'. Sigurd Hofmann now relates the steps that led to its 'creation' and detection.
The chemistry of element 114 seems to be in reach, yet Peter Schwerdtfeger cautions that we should expect the unexpected from this young element, which is so different to its lighter counterparts.