Moscovium

Moscovium (ununpentium, temporary symbol Uup) was the systematic name formerly used for the chemical element with atomic number 115. The name was assigned by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) as a placeholder for newly synthesized elements not yet officially named. The name derived from the numbering system: un-un-pent (1-1-5).

In 2016, after verification of its discovery was confirmed, the element was given its official name moscovium, with the symbol Mc. The name honors the Moscow region of Russia, where the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) is located in the city of Dubna.

Discovery

The element was first synthesized in 2003 through collaboration between a Russian team from JINR and American scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The synthesis was accomplished by bombarding americium with accelerated calcium-48 ions in a particle accelerator (cyclotron). The collision produced a very small number of new atoms, identified by their alpha decay chain.

Properties

Moscovium is a superheavy element placed in the p-block, group 15 of the periodic table, alongside nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth. It is purely synthetic—it does not occur naturally. All of its known atoms are extremely unstable and decay in very short times. Because of this, its chemical properties are generally predicted through theory rather than determined experimentally.

Naming and recognition

Like other synthetic elements, official naming awaits verification of experimental data by a joint committee of the IUPAC and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). In the interim, the systematic name ununpentium is used. Systematic names convey no information about the element's properties—they are purely numerical conventions.