Flerovium and Livermorium take seats at the periodic table

The International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac) has officially ratified the proposed names for elements 114 and 116, whose discovery was confirmed by Iupac late last year. The elements will take names that recognise the joint efforts of scientists in the US and Russia to provide unequivocal evidence of their synthesis.

The accepted names are Flerovium (symbol Fl) for element 114, honouring the Russian physicist Georgiy Flerov, who discovered the spontaneous fission of uranium. Flerov also gives his name to the laboratory at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, where the element was first made.

Element 116 is to be called Livermorium (symbol Lv) in honour of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, home of the US end of the collaborative team and a stalwart of nuclear and heavy-element research.

Today is also the deadline for submissions to the new Iupac joint working party with the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (Iupap) on heavy elements, which will now begin to consider new evidence for claims relating to the discovery of elements 113, 115, 117 and higher.

Phillip Broadwith