How are elements discovered and sysnthesized?

[Alfred001]

I'm reading some of the news about new elements being added to the table and it got me wondering how are new elements discovered typically?

Also, how are synthetic elements created? I assume its done by monkeying with the number of protons, neutrons or electrons in an atom, but how is that practically done?

[swansont]

Smashing atoms together, to make bigger atoms.

[Sensei]

I'm reading some of the news about new elements being added to the table and it got me wondering how are new elements discovered typically?

 

Also, how are synthetic elements created? I assume its done by monkeying with the number of protons, neutrons or electrons in an atom, but how is that practically done?

 

If you have Z protons in stable nucleus, and N=A-Z neutrons, (A is mass number, or Baryon Number),

and you bombard it by free neutrons,

There will be created new isotope.

Z'=Z

N'=N+1

A'=A+1=Z+N+1

 

f.e.

O-16 + n0 -> O-17

 

If it's stable, nothing serious happens.

But if it's unstable, it decays, sooner or later.

Decay by Beta Decay Minus, or Double Beta Decay Minus,

is the most interesting for you.

As it will create isotope with

Z''=Z'+1

N''=N'-1

A''=A'

(in the case of Beta Decay Minus).

 

Newly created element/isotope could be stable, unstable (moderate unstable or extremely unstable).

 

If it's moderate unstable, you could repeat bombarding it by free neutrons,

and create completely other element/isotope.

 

 

Instead of free neutrons there could be used deuterium nucleus, or other ionized atoms, accelerated to high velocity to (at least) overcome Coulombs barrier (free neutrons don't need to).

Edited December 3, 2016 by Sensei

[John Cuthber]

I'm reading some of the news about new elements being added to the table and it got me wondering how are new elements discovered typically?

 

Also, how are synthetic elements created? I assume its done by monkeying with the number of protons, neutrons or electrons in an atom, but how is that practically done?

Practically speaking, either in a nuclear reactor or with a particle accelerator.

 

If you have the power to make stars then

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis

but I think that, if you could make them, you would already know that.

[Alfred001]

So you have an atom with a certain number of protons and then you smash into it an atom with a certain number of protons and they bind, the protons add up in a new atom, is that right?

 

How do you make it so they bind rather than smash into smaller units, which is the kind of stuff we typically hear about from particle accelerators? Or is that what happens when you smash subatomic particles together?

 

And the other option is smashing neutrons into it to create isotopes, right? That doesn't create new elements.

 

 

Also, is it known whether there's some kinda limit to how many protons there can be in a nucleus or are there theoretically an infinite number of elements?

And are the properties of new or theoretical elements predictable somehow or a complete mystery. Meaning, say we've never seen an element with 119 protons (I'm making this up, I know nothing about this, I think I read there are 118 elements), do we know what its properties would be if we created it or is it unpredictable?

[swansont]

So you have an atom with a certain number of protons and then you smash into it an atom with a certain number of protons and they bind, the protons add up in a new atom, is that right?

 

How do you make it so they bind rather than smash into smaller units, which is the kind of stuff we typically hear about from particle accelerators?

 

 

There are different kinds of accelerators. People searching for the Higgs, for example, were smashing protons together. People searching for ultra-heavy elements smash heavy ions into heavy atoms

 

 

http://www.chemicool.com/elements/ununseptium.html

In the first synthesis of tennessine, calcium ions were formed into a beam in a cyclotron (a particle accelerator) and fired at a target layer of berkelium deposited 300 nm thick on titanium foil.

The first bombardment lasted 70 days. The berkelium was bombarded with over 7 trillion calcium-48 ions per second, accelerated to about 10% of the speed of light.

The data showed five nuclei of interest were produced during the 70 day bombardment. As a consequence of the high energy of the impacts that created them, these nuclei instantly lost thermal energy by emitting four neutrons to form tennessine-293.

 

Bk has 97 protons and Bk-249 has a half-life of 330 days. Ca has 20 protons. So some of the reactions resulted in no protons lost and formed Ts, with 117 protons.

[Alfred001]

Thanks!

[LizW12]

Just smash atoms together to make bigger ones