June 8, 2015
Element 117 named tennessine
The discovery of element 117, a synthetic element that does not occur in nature, required many years of collaborative research by dozens of scientists from several international institutions.
The experiment that produced the first evidence of element 117 could not have happened without multiple world-class scientific facilities, including those at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
On June 8, 2015, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Inorganic Chemistry Division published a Provisional Recommendation for the name tennessine and symbol Ts for element 117. In doing so, IUPAC recognized the contributions of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to superheavy element research, including the production and chemical separation of unique actinide target materials for superheavy element synthesis at ORNL’s HFIR-REDC facilities.
Berkelium-249 separated at ORNL's Radiochemical Engineering Development Laboratory, 2009, following target irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor.
Bk-249 was the precursor isotope for the element 117 campaign, led at ORNL by Jim Roberto.
(Photo Credit: Frank Riley/Radiochemical Engineering Development Center)
