• History
• Isotopes
• Darmstadtium Data
• Transition Metals
• Interactive Periodic Table

History

Darmstadtium was first generated on November 9, 1994 at the Gesellschaft fur Schwerioneforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, by a team headed by Dr. Jorge Rigol.   Only a few atoms of it were prepared by nuclear fusion, involving bombarding a lead target with nickel with a device known as a linear accelerator:

This produced one atom of darmstadtium-269, an isotope with a half-life of about 0.17 milliseconds (0.00017 seconds), after at least a billion billion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) nickel ions were fired at the lead target over the course of a week.

The element was named after the place of its discovery, Darmstadt (the GSI is located in Wixhausen, a northern portion of the city).  The new name was given to it by the IUPAC on August 16, 2003.

Ununnilium was the previous temporary IUPAC systematic name of this synthetic superheavy element in the periodic table with the symbol Uun and atomic number 110.

Isotopes

It is one of the so-called super-heavy atoms.  This syntheic element quickly decays: its isotopes of mass 267 to 273 have half-lives measured in microseconds.   Heavier isotopes of darmstadtium, of mass 279 and 281, have been subsequently synthesized and are more stable, with half-lives of 180 milliseconds and 11.1 seconds, respectively.

Darmstadtium's most stable isotope, darmstadtium-281, has a half-life of about 1.1 minutes.  It decays into hassium-277 through alpha decay.

Nuclides produced include:

⁶²Ni + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁶⁹Ds + 1 n, 1994, GSI Darmstadt, 3 atoms

⁶⁴Ni + ²⁰⁷Pb ²⁷⁰Ds + 1 n, 2000, GSI Darmstadt, 8 atoms

⁶⁴Ni + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁷¹Ds + 1 n, 1994, GSI Darmstadt, 9 atoms

⁶⁴Ni + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁷¹Ds + 1 n, 2000, GSI Darmstadt, 4 atoms

⁶⁴Ni + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁷¹Ds + 1 n, 2000, LBNL Berkeley, 2 atoms

⁶⁴Ni + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁷¹Ds + 1 n, 2002, RIKEN Japan, 14 atoms

⁷⁰Zn + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁷⁷Uub + 1 n, ²⁷³Ds + 1 alpha, 1996, GSI Darmstadt, 1 atom

⁷⁰Zn + ²⁰⁸Pb ²⁷⁷Uub + 1 n, ²⁷³Ds + 1 alpha, 2000, GSI Darmstadt, 1 atom

⁴⁸Ca + ²⁴⁴Pu ²⁸⁸Uuq + 4 n, ²⁸⁰Ds + 2 alpha, 1999, FLNR Dubna, 2 atoms

⁴⁸Ca + ²⁴⁴Pu ²⁸⁹Uuq + 3 n, ²⁸¹Ds + 2 alpha, 1998, FLNR Dubna, 1 atom

⁴⁸Ca + ²⁴⁸Cm ²⁹²Uuh + 4 n, ²⁸⁰Ds + 3 alpha, 2000, FLNR Dubna, 1 atom

⁴⁸Ca + ²⁴⁸Cm ²⁹²Uuh + 4 n, ²⁸⁰Ds + 3 alpha, 2001, FLNR Dubna, 2 atoms

Trivia

Some suggested (for fun) the name policium for the new element, because 110 is the emergency telephone number for the German police.