Discovery Information
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Who: The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research |
When: 1970 |
Where: Dubna, USSR |
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Name Origin
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After the city of Dubna, Russia, home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research |
"Dubnium" in different languages. |
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Sources
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First synthesized by bombarding Am243 with Ne22. Only a few atoms have ever been produced.
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Uses
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None. |
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History
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Dubnium (named after Dubna, Russia) was reportedly first synthesized in 1967 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in
Dubna, Russia (reportedly producing nuclide 260105 and nuclide 261105 by bombarding 243Am with 22Ne). In late April 1970 researchers led by Albert Ghiorso working at the University of California, Berkeley had positively identified element 105.
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The American team synthesized the element by bombarding a target 249Cf with a beam of 84 MeV nitrogen nuclei in the Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator (a particle accelerator), which produced nuclide 260105 with a half-life of 1.6 seconds. Atoms of element 105 were detected conclusively on March 5, 1970 but there is evidence that this element
had already been formed at Berkeley a year earlier using the same method.
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The Berkeley scientists later tried to confirm the Soviet findings using more sophisticated methods but were not successful.
They proposed that the new element should be named hahnium (symbol Ha) in honor of the late German scientist Otto Hahn. Consequently this was the name that most American and Western European scientists used.
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An element naming controversy erupted over what to name this element after Russian researchers protested. The International
Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) thus adopted unnilpentium as a temporary, systematic element name. However in
1997 they resolved the dispute and adopted the current name, dubnium (symbol Db), after the city that contains the Russian
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Its former names have included hahnium, joliotium and nielsbohrium.
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Notes
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In August of 1997 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry announced the official naming of this element as Dubnium,
it has previously been known as Joliotium, Hahnium and Unnilpentium (from the latin for "one zero five").
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