Apr 29 2008
A new “stable” superheavy element?
I haven’t had time to look at it closely, but a paper showed up on the physics arXiv claiming possible discovery of element 122. They were analyzing thorium-containing solutions in an inductively-coupled plasma sector field mass spec (ICP-SFMS) and saw a peak they could not explain at mass 292. They argue this should be from an element with atomic number 122. They cite an abundance relative to thorium of about 1E-12. My early, somewhat uninformed, guess is that a contaminant is responsible, but it should make for an interesting read.
Here is my take on the claim: http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/04/29/adressing-marinovs-element-122-claim/