On the volatility of nihonium (Nh, Z = 113)

The periodic table – an experimenter’s guide to transactinide chemistry

“…Later, a second experiment with preseparation and no quartz surfaces in contact with the nuclear fusion reaction products did not reproduce the observation of a volatile nihonium species at much cleaner conditions, which indicates the formation of a volatile molecule in the initial experiment [68]. Adsorption enthalpy limits on gold (<−60 kJ/mol) [67] and Teflon (<−45 kJ/mol) [68] could be estimated from these experiments, however again, with an unknown chemical speciation of nihonium. Further experiments with Tl are under way to force the stable formation of one particular volatile molecular species using oxygen and water containing atmospheres and quartz surfaces in experiments using the advantages of preseparation.…”

“…Thus, a weak interaction of the formed Nh species with Teflon surfaces was stated and a stronger interaction with gold [67]. Later, a second experiment with preseparation and no quartz surfaces in contact with the nuclear fusion reaction products did not reproduce the observation of a volatile nihonium species at much cleaner conditions, which indicates the formation of a volatile molecule in the initial experiment [68]. Adsorption enthalpy limits on gold (<−60 kJ/mol) [67] and Teflon (<−45 kJ/mol) [68] could be estimated from these experiments, however again, with an unknown chemical speciation of nihonium.…”

Adsorption of the astatine species on a gold surface: A relativistic density functional theory study

“…Hence, after the successful chemical characterization of elemental copernicium [5] (Cn, Z = 112) and flerovium [6] (Fl, Z = 114), nihonium (Nh, Z = 113) increasingly catches the chemist's interest. First experimental results have been recently obtained at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reaction in Dubna, Russia [7,8].…”

“…The non-observation of any decays of Nh in the latest chemical experiment [8] demands for a modification of the experimental approach. Therefore, future experimental efforts may focus primarily on the efficient formation and detection of NhOH molecules -most likely the chemical species observed in the early investigations [7].…”

Classifying superheavy elements by machine learning

“…However, for the superheavy elements with atomic number (Z) greater than 108, at present only Cn (Z = 112) has been experimentally classified as a metal [8,9]. Although experiments have also been conducted for the chemistry of Nh (Z = 113) and Fl (Z = 114), the results and conclusions are uncertain and even contradictory to each other [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Due to the limitations associated with half-life and production rate, the chemistry of other superheavy elements has not been experimentally studied.…”