Nihonium (Nh), also called element 113 or ununtrium, artificially produced transuranium element of atomic number 113. In 2004 scientists at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Saitama, Japan announced the production of one atom of element 113, which was formed when bismuth-209 was fused with zinc-70. Extremely radioactive, the atom decayed through emission of alpha particles (helium nuclei) to dubnium-262 in about 2.5 seconds. Its chemical properties may be similar to those of thallium. The element has six isotopes with known and confirmed half-lives, the longest-lived of which is nihonium-286 with a half-life of 19.6 seconds. Continue reading from Encyclopedia Britannica
Nihonium didn't just come by accident when someone found it in nature. It took years for scientists to research and produce this element in their lab. The beginning of nihonium's discovery began in early 2004, when scientists from Wako, Japan decided to test out their lab facilities. RIKEN is a heavy-ion facility in Japan that contains a special linear accelerator, a machine that is used to produce particles. In Japan, the type of accelerator that is used is called a cyclotron, which spins a particle and aims it at a target. RIKEN is a superconducting cyclotron used for heavy ions. With the cyclotron, scientists accelerated zinc ions into bismuth. With the collision, elements were made that spontaneously decayed into other elements -- one being the isotope of nihonium. Continue reading from Study.com
Nihonium is a radioactive, synthetic element about which little is known. It is classified as a metal and is expected to be solid at room temperature. The element, No. 113 on the Periodic Table of Elements, had previously been designated ununtrium, a placeholder name that means one-one-three in Latin. In November 2016, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) approved the name nihonium for element 113.
Scientists with Japan's RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science proposed the element name nihonium, which is one way to say "Japan" in Japanese and means "the land of the rising sun," according to the IUPAC. Nihonium's atomic symbol is Nh. Continue reading from LiveScience
