Nihonium
post transition metalProperties
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Atomic Mass | 286 amu |
| Category | post transition metal |
| Group | 13 |
| Period | 7 |
| Electron Configuration | [Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p1 |
| Oxidation States | 3, 1 |
| Discovered By | Kosuke Morita, RIKEN (2003) |
About Nihonium
Nihonium was made the hard way. Morita's team at RIKEN spent nine years bombarding a ²⁰⁹Bi target with ⁷⁰Zn at the GARIS recoil separator and pulled out a grand total of three confirmed atoms — a cross-section of about 22 femtobarns, which works out to roughly one fusion event per 10¹⁹ collisions. That patience earned Japan naming rights when IUPAC accepted ²⁸⁶Nh in 2016, the first element ever discovered in Asia. The most stable isotope hangs around for about 9.5 seconds before alpha-decaying through a chain that ends near dubnium. Sitting one row below thallium in group 13, the predicted ground-state configuration is [Rn] 5f¹⁴ 6d¹⁰ 7s² 7p¹, but the 7s² pair is so relativistically stabilized that calculations suggest the +1 state should dominate over +3 — the inert pair effect on steroids. Some theoretical work predicts Nh might even be more volatile than Tl, behaving almost like a noble metal, but no one has done a chemistry experiment yet because the 9.5-second half-life makes it brutally hard.
Fun Fact
Nihonium was the first element discovered in Asia — its creation at Japan's RIKEN laboratory and subsequent naming after Japan ('Nihon') in 2016 was celebrated as one of the greatest achievements of Japanese science.
Common Uses
- Hot-fusion target for cold-fusion cross-section benchmarks at RIKEN
- Decay-chain anchor for confirming superheavy element claims
- Test case for predicted relativistic inert-pair effects in 7p¹ systems
- Calibration for recoil separators like GARIS and TASCA
- No commercial applications