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

Nikolay V. Aksenov; Patrick Steinegger; Farid Sh. Abdullin; Yury V. Albin; Gospodin A. Bozhikov; Viktor I. Chepigin; Robert Eichler; Vyacheslav Ya. Lebedev; Alexander Sh. Madumarov; Oleg N. Malyshev; Oleg V. Petrushkin; Alexander N. Polyakov; Yury A. Popov; Alexey V. Sabel’nikov; Roman N. Sagaidak; Igor V. Shirokovsky; Maksim V. Shumeiko; Gennadii Ya. Starodub; Yury S. Tsyganov; Vladimir K. Utyonkov; Alexey A. Voinov; Grigory K. Vostokin; Alexander V. Yeremin; Sergey N. Dmitriev

doi:10.1140/epja/i2017-12348-8

2021 Impact factor 3.131

Hadrons and Nuclei

Eur. Phys. J. A (2017) 53: 158
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2017-12348-8

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

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

Nikolay V. Aksenov¹, Patrick Steinegger¹^*, Farid Sh. Abdullin¹, Yury V. Albin¹, Gospodin A. Bozhikov¹^,2, Viktor I. Chepigin¹, Robert Eichler³^,4, Vyacheslav Ya. Lebedev¹, Alexander Sh. Madumarov¹, Oleg N. Malyshev¹, Oleg V. Petrushkin¹, Alexander N. Polyakov¹, Yury A. Popov¹, Alexey V. Sabel’nikov¹, Roman N. Sagaidak¹, Igor V. Shirokovsky¹, Maksim V. Shumeiko¹, Gennadii Ya. Starodub¹, Yury S. Tsyganov¹, Vladimir K. Utyonkov¹, Alexey A. Voinov¹, Grigory K. Vostokin¹, Alexander V. Yeremin¹ and Sergey N. Dmitriev¹

¹ Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, Joliot-Curie 6, 141980, Dubna, Russia
² Institute for Advanced Physical Studies, 21 Montevideo Street, 1618, Sofia, Bulgaria
³ Paul Scherrer Institute, Laboratory of Radiochemistry, 5232, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
⁴ Universität Bern, Departement für Chemie und Biochemie, Freiestrasse 3, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

^* e-mail: steinegger@jinr.ru

Received: 28 April 2017
Accepted: 5 July 2017
Published online: 28 July 2017

Abstract

Gas-phase chromatography studies of nihonium (Nh, ) were carried out at the one-atom-at-a-time level. For the production of nihonium, the heavy-ion-induced nuclear fusion reaction of ⁴⁸Ca with ²⁴³Am was used. This leads to isotopes ^284,285Nh, as the direct descendants of the -decaying precursors ^288,289Mc. Combining the Dubna Gas-Filled Recoil Separator with gas-phase chromatographic separation, the experiment was sensitive to elemental nihonium and its adsorption behavior on Teflon, theoretically predicted by modern relativistic density functional theory. The non-observation of any decays of Nh after the chemical separation indicates a larger than expected retention of elemental Nh on a Teflon surface.