The darmstadtium is a heavy chemical element ultra located in series transactinide, which start just after the metal lawrencium. It is specifically located in group 10 and period 7 of the periodic table, being congeners of the metals nickel, palladium and platinum.
It has the chemical symbol Ds, with an atomic number of 110, and its very few atoms that have been synthesized decompose practically instantly. It is therefore an ephemeral element. Synthesizing and detecting it represented a feat in the 1990s, with a group of German researchers taking credit for its discovery.
The element Darmstadtium was discovered at the German institute GSI, in the city of Darmstadt. Source: commander-pirx at German Wikipedia
Before its discovery and its name being debated, the IUPAC nomenclature system had formally named it as 'ununilio', which means 'one-one-zero', equal to 110. And further back from this nomenclature, According to the Mendeleev system, its name was eka-platinum because it is thought chemically analogous to this metal.
Darmstadtium is an element not only ephemeral and unstable, but also highly radioactive, in whose nuclear decays most of its isotopes release alpha particles; These are bare helium nuclei.
Because of its fleeting life span, all its properties are estimated and can never be used for any particular purpose.
Discovery
German merit
The problem surrounding the discovery of darmstadtium was that several teams of researchers had dedicated themselves to its synthesis in successive years. As soon as its atom was formed, it vanished into irradiated particles.
So you couldn't fumble which of the teams deserved the credit of having synthesized it first, when even detecting it was already challenging, decaying so fast and releasing radioactive products.
Separate teams from the following research centers worked on the synthesis of darmstadtium: Central Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubná (then the Soviet Union), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (United States) and Heavy Ion Research Center (abbreviated in German as GSI).
The GSI is located in the German city of Darmstadt, where in November 1994 they synthesized the radioactive isotope 269 Ds. The other teams synthesized other isotopes: 267 Ds at ICIN, and 273 Ds at LNLB; however, their results had not been conclusive in the critical eyes of the IUPAC.
Each team had proposed a particular name for this new element: hahnio (ICIN) and becquerel (LNLB). But following an IUPAC report in 2001, the German GSI team had the right to name the element darmstadtium.
Synthesis
Darmstadtium is the product of the fusion of metal atoms. Which? In principle, a relatively heavy one that serves as a target or objective, and another light one that will be made to collide with the first at a speed equal to one-tenth the speed of light in vacuum; otherwise, the repulsions existing between its two nuclei could not be overcome.
Once the two nuclei collide efficiently, a nuclear fusion reaction will occur. The protons add up, but the fate of the neutrons is different. For example, the GSI developed the following nuclear reaction, from which the first atom 269 Ds was produced:
Nuclear reaction for the synthesis of a 269Ds isotope atom. Source: Gabriel Bolívar.
Note that the protons (in red) add up. By varying the atomic masses of the colliding atoms, different isotopes of darmstadtium are obtained. In fact, the GSI carried out experiments with the 64 Ni isotope instead of 62 Ni, of which they synthesized only 9 atoms of the 271 Ds isotope.
The GSI managed to create 3 atoms of 269 Ds, but after executing three trillion bombardments per second for a full week. This data offers an overwhelming perspective of the dimensions of such experiments.
Structure of darmstadtium
Because only one darmstadtium atom can be synthesized or created per week, it is unlikely that there will be enough of them to establish a crystal; Not to mention that the most stable isotope is 281 Ds, whose t 1/2 is only 12.7 seconds.
Therefore, to determine its crystalline structure, researchers rely on calculations and estimates that seek to get closer to the most realistic picture. Thus, the structure of darmstadtium has been estimated to be body-centered cubic (bcc); unlike their lighter congeners nickel, palladium and platinum, with face-centered cubic (fcc) structures.
In theory, the outermost electrons of the 6d and 7s orbitals must participate in their metallic bond, according to their also estimated electronic configuration:
5f 14 6d 8 7s 2
However, little is likely to be learned experimentally about the physical properties of this metal.
Properties
The other properties of darmstadtium are also estimated, for the same reasons mentioned for its structure. However, some of these estimates are interesting. For example, darmstadtium would be an even more noble metal than gold, as well as much denser (34.8 g / cm 3) than osmium (22.59 g / cm 3) and mercury (13.6 g / cm 3). cm 3).
Regarding their possible oxidation states, it has been estimated that they would be +6 (Ds 6+), +4 (Ds 4+) and +2 (Ds 2+), equal to those of their lighter congeners. Therefore, if the 281 Ds atoms were reacted before they disintegrated, compounds such as DsF 6 or DsCl 4 would be obtained.
Surprisingly, there is a probability of synthesizing these compounds, because 12.7 seconds, the t 1/2 of 281 Ds, is more than enough time to carry out the reactions. However, the drawback continues to be that just one Ds atom per week is insufficient to collect all the data required for statistical analysis.
Applications
Again, being such a rare metal, currently synthesized in atomic and not massive quantities, there is no use reserved for it; not even in the distant future.
Unless a method is invented to stabilize their radioactive isotopes, darmstadtium atoms will only serve to arouse scientific curiosity, especially where nuclear physics and chemistry are concerned.
But if you figure out a way to create them in large quantities, more light will be shed on the chemistry of this ultra-heavy and ephemeral element.
References
- Shiver & Atkins. (2008). Inorganic chemistry. (Fourth edition). Mc Graw Hill.
- Wikipedia. (2020). Darmstadtium. Recovered from: en.wikipedia.org
- Steve Gagnon. (sf). The Element Darmstadtium. Jefferson Lab Resources. Recovered from: education.jlab.org
- National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2020). Darmstadtium. PubChem Database. Recovered from: pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Brian Clegg. (December 15, 2019). Darmstadtium. Chemistry in its elements. Recovered from: chemistryworld.com