Category: Post-transition metal | State: Unknown
To truly understand the periodic table of elements is to understand the universe itself. The table serves as a comprehensive map of all known matter, categorizing the fundamental building blocks that make up everything from the screen you are reading on to the furthest stars in the cosmos. Most of the elements we encounter in daily life—such as oxygen, carbon, and iron—are abundant and naturally occurring. However, at the very edge of this chemical map lies a mysterious and fleeting realm: the domain of the superheavy elements.
These elements are synthetic, meaning they must be artificially created in highly advanced laboratories. They are incredibly unstable, intensely radioactive, and exist for only fractions of a second before breaking apart. Among these remarkable human-made creations is Element 113, officially named Nihonium (chemical symbol Nh).
This comprehensive report is designed to explain everything there is to know about Nihonium step by step. Written to be highly informative yet accessible, this document explores the cosmic conditions required to forge heavy matter, the centuries-long human journey from ancient alchemy to modern nuclear physics, the exact methods used to create this element, and the profound scientific, cultural, and geopolitical implications of its discovery.
To understand where Nihonium comes from, it is necessary to travel back to the very beginning of the universe and examine the cosmic crucibles where elements are born.
In the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, approximately 13.8 billion years ago, the universe was a superheated soup of fundamental particles. As it expanded and cooled, the very first atomic nuclei formed, almost exclusively hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of lithium. The Big Bang did not produce any heavier elements; the universe simply cooled too quickly for larger nuclei to fuse together.
For billions of years, gravity pulled these primordial clouds of hydrogen and helium together to form the first stars. Deep within the cores of these stars, the immense heat and pressure cause lighter atoms to smash together and fuse, creating heavier elements. This process, known as stellar nucleosynthesis, is responsible for creating the carbon in our cells, the oxygen we breathe, and the calcium in our bones. However, normal stellar fusion has a strict limit: it stops at iron. Fusing elements heavier than iron requires more energy than the reaction produces, which means a star cannot build anything heavier than iron during its normal lifespan.
So, how do elements heavier than iron—like gold, lead, uranium, and theoretically, Nihonium—come into existence?
The creation of the heaviest elements requires catastrophic cosmic events. The primary mechanism for this is known as the rapid neutron-capture process, or the “r-process”.
Imagine an atomic nucleus as a cluster of protons and neutrons. To make the nucleus heavier, you need to add more neutrons. In the r-process, a seed nucleus (like iron) is bombarded by a massive storm of free neutrons. This bombardment happens so incredibly fast that the nucleus absorbs neutron after neutron before it even has a chance to decay. Eventually, the nucleus becomes so heavy and unstable that some of its neutrons convert into protons (through a process called beta decay), thereby creating an entirely new, heavier element.
For decades, astrophysicists debated where in the universe an environment extreme enough to host the r-process could exist. Early theories pointed to core-collapse supernovae—the explosive deaths of massive stars. While supernovae do contribute, recent breakthroughs in multi-messenger astronomy have confirmed a much more dramatic source: the collision of two neutron stars.
When two extraordinarily dense neutron stars spiral into one another and merge, the collision tears them apart, ejecting a cloud of neutron-rich matter into space. Within the chaotic, superheated debris of a neutron star merger, the r-process runs wild, forging vast quantities of heavy and superheavy elements. Theoretical physicists also suggest that high-energy photonic jets erupting from collapsing stars (collapsars) might dissolve stellar material into free neutrons, providing another extreme environment for heavy element nucleosynthesis.
Given that neutron star mergers generate superheavy matter, it is theoretically possible that isotopes of Element 113 are forged in the fleeting milliseconds following such cosmic collisions. However, the defining characteristic of superheavy elements is their extreme instability. The heaviest nuclei are packed with so many positively charged protons that the electrostatic repulsion between them constantly threatens to tear the nucleus apart.
Even the most stable theoretical isotopes of Nihonium would only survive for a maximum of roughly 330 years before decaying into lighter elements. Considering that the Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago from a primordial solar nebula, any superheavy elements that might have been present in the cosmic dust that built our planet decayed away billions of years ago.
Therefore, if one were to search the Earth’s crust, mantle, or core today, the amount of naturally occurring Nihonium found would be exactly zero. It is an element that must be meticulously resurrected from the void of non-existence by human ingenuity.
Because Nihonium does not exist in nature, it was completely unknown to ancient civilizations. The great builders of Mesopotamia, the pharaohs of Egypt, the scholars of ancient China, the engineers of the Indus Valley, and the astronomers of the Maya empire left behind vast archaeological evidence of their mastery over metals like gold, copper, iron, and lead, but they had no concept of superheavy elements.
However, these early civilizations laid the foundational philosophies and chemical practices that would eventually lead humanity to discover Nihonium. This journey begins with the ancient practice of alchemy.
Alchemy was a philosophical and proto-scientific tradition practiced globally, from China and India to the Hellenistic Greek world and the Islamic Golden Age. One of the primary goals of alchemy was chrysopoeia: the transmutation of “base metals” (like lead) into “noble metals” (like gold) using a mythical substance known as the philosopher’s stone.
While alchemists like the legendary Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) operated under the incorrect theory that all metals were composed of varying balances of sulfur and mercury, their meticulous laboratory techniques—such as distillation and purification—birthed the modern science of chemistry. For thousands of years, the idea of transmuting one element into another was considered mysticism. It was not until the 20th century, with the dawn of the atomic age, that scientists realized transmutation was possible—not through chemical reactions, but through nuclear physics. By smashing atomic nuclei together, scientists became the modern alchemists, capable of creating entirely new elements.
The specific history of Element 113 begins with a story of ambitious vision and profound scientific heartbreak. In the early 20th century, a Japanese chemist named Masataka Ogawa travelled to University College London to study under the famous chemist Sir William Ramsay. Between 1904 and 1906, Ogawa analyzed a radioactive mineral called thorianite.
Ogawa isolated what he believed to be element 43, a gap in the periodic table at the time. Filled with national pride, he named the element “Nipponium” (symbol Np) after his homeland. Unfortunately, the scientific community could not replicate his results, and his discovery was rejected. For decades, Ogawa continued his research in Japan, struggling to prove the existence of his “phantom element” until his death in 1930.
It was not until almost a century later, in 1996, that modern X-ray spectroscopy of Ogawa’s original samples revealed the tragic truth: Ogawa had successfully discovered a new element, but he had misidentified it. He had actually found element 75, which was later discovered by German scientists in 1925 and named rhenium. Because of this error, Japan lost the chance to have an element named after it, a failure that lingered as a sore spot in Japanese scientific history for generations.
The successful synthesis of Element 113 occurred a century later, during an era of intense global competition known informally as the “Transfermium Wars,” where laboratories in the United States, Russia, and Germany raced to expand the periodic table.
The first tentative report of Element 113 came in August 2003 from a joint team of American and Russian scientists. Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the US and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia, bombarded a target of americium with calcium atoms to create element 115 (Moscovium). As the Moscovium atoms rapidly decayed, they transformed briefly into atoms of element 113.
Concurrently, a team of Japanese scientists at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, led by Dr. Kosuke Morita, was taking a different approach. Starting in September 2003, the RIKEN team used a massive linear accelerator to fire a continuous beam of zinc atoms at a target of bismuth. After months of grueling, around-the-clock experimentation, on the night of July 23, 2004, the team successfully detected a single atom of Element 113.
The RIKEN team managed to produce the element again in April 2005 and a third time in August 2012, providing undeniable proof of their discovery through a beautifully clear chain of radioactive decays. On December 31, 2015, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) officially recognized the RIKEN team as the discoverers, granting them the right to name the element. Japan had finally achieved its century-old dream.
Because Nihonium is incredibly difficult to make and exists for such a short time, scientists cannot simply hold a chunk of it in their hands to observe it. Instead, they must rely on highly complex quantum computer models and incredibly precise, single-atom experiments to understand its properties. Let us break down the full picture of this element.
The atomic structure of an element defines its identity. The nucleus at the center contains protons and neutrons, while electrons orbit the nucleus in distinct layers or “shells.”
| Isotope | Abundance | Half-Life | Decay Mode | Decay Product |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nihonium-278 (278Nh) | Synthetic | 2.0 milliseconds | Alpha Decay | Roentgenium-274 |
| Nihonium-282 (282Nh) | Synthetic | 61 milliseconds | Alpha Decay | Roentgenium-278 |
| Nihonium-283 (283Nh) | Synthetic | 123 milliseconds | Alpha Decay | Roentgenium-279 |
| Nihonium-284 (284Nh) | Synthetic | 0.90 seconds | Alpha Decay | Roentgenium-280 |
| Nihonium-285 (285Nh) | Synthetic | 2.1 seconds | Alpha Decay / Fission | Roentgenium-281 |
| Nihonium-286 (286Nh) | Synthetic | 9.5 to 20 seconds | Alpha Decay | Roentgenium-282 |
Data compiled from. Note: A half-life is the time it takes for exactly half of the atoms in a given sample to decay.
If we could miraculously freeze time and gather a visible block of Nihonium, what would it look like? Based on its position in Group 13 of the periodic table (directly below boron, aluminium, gallium, indium, and thallium), scientists have made strong predictions about its physical state.
Chemistry is dictated by how the outermost electrons of an atom interact with the world. For superheavy elements, these interactions are profoundly altered by Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
Because the nucleus of Nihonium contains 113 positively charged protons, it exerts a massive electrostatic pull on the negatively charged electrons orbiting it. To keep from crashing into the nucleus, the innermost electrons must travel at extreme velocities—a significant fraction of the speed of light. According to relativity, as an object’s speed increases, its mass effectively increases. This relativistic mass increase causes the inner electron orbits (specifically the s and p orbitals) to physically shrink and contract closer to the nucleus.
This contraction cascades all the way out to the valence electrons. In Nihonium, the two electrons in the 7s orbital become so tightly pulled toward the nucleus that they refuse to participate in chemical bonding. This is known as the “inert pair effect”. Furthermore, the single electron in the 7p orbital splits into different energy levels.
The result of all this quantum strangeness is that Nihonium behaves differently than expected. Lighter elements in its family, like aluminium, usually bond by giving up three electrons (a +3 oxidation state). However, because of the inert pair effect, Nihonium strongly prefers to give up only one electron (a +1 oxidation state). In this +1 state, theoretical models suggest that Nihonium might chemically act more like silver than like its direct cousin, thallium.
Remarkably, scientists have actually managed to test the chemical reactivity of Nihonium using a technique called gas-solid chromatography. By isolating single atoms of Nihonium and blowing them across surfaces of quartz (silicon oxide) and gold inside a specialized detector, scientists measured how strongly the atom sticks to the surface. They found that Nihonium binds to quartz with an energy of −58 kJ/mol, proving that it is less reactive than thallium, but significantly more reactive than its heavier neighbor, flerovium.
If you were to ask a geologist where to find Nihonium, the answer would be simple: nowhere.
Nihonium is a purely synthetic element. There are absolutely no ores or minerals in the Earth’s crust that contain it. Consequently, there are no geological settings to explore, no global reserves to calculate, and no mining production to measure in tonnes. No country holds a natural monopoly on Nihonium because the element simply does not exist outside of a laboratory.
Instead of traditional mining, the “extraction” of Nihonium relies on the most complex machines ever built by humanity: particle accelerators. Let us walk step-by-step through the process of making this element in a laboratory.
Synthesizing a superheavy element requires fusing two lighter atoms together. However, atomic nuclei are positively charged, and just like two magnets with the same pole, they fiercely repel each other. To overcome this massive electrostatic barrier, scientists must accelerate one atom to incredible speeds and smash it into another. Worldwide, there are two primary methods used to achieve this: Cold Fusion and Hot Fusion.
1. Cold Fusion (The RIKEN Method) This was the method used by the Japanese team to officially discover Element 113. It is called “cold” fusion not because the temperature is literally cold, but because the resulting fused nucleus has relatively low excitation energy (it is less “agitated”).
2. Hot Fusion (The JINR/LLNL Method) This method, pioneered by the Russian-American collaboration, creates a compound nucleus with much higher energy, which must evaporate multiple neutrons to survive.
When the accelerator is firing, trillions of beam particles hit the target every second, creating a massive amount of debris. How do scientists find the one single atom of Nihonium hidden in this mess?
They use a machine called a gas-filled recoil separator, such as the GARIS machine in Japan or the DGFRS in Russia. After the collision, all the flying particles enter a chamber filled with helium gas and surrounded by powerful magnets. The unreacted beam particles and lighter debris are swept away by the magnets. The superheavy, sluggish Nihonium atom, however, is steered perfectly into a highly sensitive silicon detector. When the Nihonium atom decays, the detector records the exact energy and time of the radioactive burst, proving the element was there.
When people learn about a new element, the most common question is: “What is it used for?” In the case of Nihonium, we must look at its uses through the lens of its extreme physical limitations. Because its longest-lived isotope survives for only about 20 seconds, and because scientists have only ever created a few dozen atoms in history, it cannot be accumulated to form a visible substance.
Let us break down its potential across all major sectors of the world economy:
While it has no commercial, industrial, or medical value, Nihonium is incredibly valuable to one specific sector: Fundamental Scientific Research.
The primary “use” of Nihonium is to act as a stress-test for the laws of physics. By studying how the nucleus of Nihonium holds itself together for those brief seconds, scientists gain critical insights into the “strong nuclear force”—the fundamental force that holds all matter in the universe together. Furthermore, by measuring its chemical properties, scientists can verify if Einstein’s equations of relativity hold true at the extreme edges of the periodic table. In short, Nihonium is used to help us understand how the universe works at the most fundamental, subatomic level.
Because it has no commercial applications, Nihonium operates entirely outside the traditional global economy. It is not traded as a global commodity. You will not find Nihonium listed on the London Metal Exchange or the New York Mercantile Exchange. It has no benchmark price, nor is it subject to supply and demand in the traditional sense.
However, in the elite world of “Big Science,” Nihonium carries immense political and economic weight.
While you cannot put a price tag on a gram of Nihonium, the cost to produce just a few atoms is astronomical. The particle accelerators required to make it—such as the Superheavy Element Factory in Dubna, Russia, or the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) in Japan—are massive infrastructure projects requiring hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding to build and maintain. Running these accelerators requires huge amounts of electricity, and the rare isotopes used as target materials and particle beams are incredibly expensive.
For instance, the global supply chain for superheavy element research relies heavily on target materials like americium, berkelium, and californium. These highly radioactive isotopes are produced in specialized nuclear reactors, primarily managed by the U.S. Department of Energy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This creates a unique geopolitical situation: to push the boundaries of physics, international adversaries must collaborate and trade microscopic amounts of highly controlled nuclear materials.
The true value of Nihonium lies in national prestige. Discovering a new element is one of the highest honors a nation can achieve in the scientific world. It is a permanent testament to a country’s technological supremacy, proving that it possesses world-class engineering, brilliant physicists, and massive financial resources.
For decades, the periodic table was dominated by discoveries from the United States, Russia, and Europe. When the RIKEN team won the naming rights for Element 113, it was a massive geopolitical and cultural victory for Japan. It demonstrated a shift in the balance of global scientific power, earning Japan a permanent seat on the most famous scientific chart in history. Nations use these discoveries as powerful tools of “soft power,” showcasing their intellectual dominance to the rest of the world.
When discussing the environmental impact of typical elements like copper or lithium, the conversation centers around the devastation of mining: deforestation, soil erosion, the destruction of habitats, and the pollution of water tables with acid mine drainage or cyanide.
Because Nihonium is 100% synthetic, it avoids all of these traditional environmental horrors. There are no Nihonium mines carving scars into the Earth, no loss of biodiversity from habitat clearing, and no risk of catastrophic tailings dam failures like those seen in Brazil or Romania. However, the creation of Nihonium has its own unique environmental and safety footprint.
The primary environmental impact of Nihonium comes from the massive amount of electricity required to run particle accelerators. To keep an accelerator’s superconducting magnets chilled to near absolute zero, and to fire beams of heavy ions at 10% the speed of light continuously for months on end, requires megawatts of power. Depending on how the local electrical grid generates its power (whether through coal, natural gas, or renewables), the carbon footprint of keeping these research facilities running can be substantial.
Working at a superheavy element facility involves serious health and safety risks. Particle accelerators generate intense secondary radiation while operating. When high-speed ions slam into the machinery, they produce dangerous “dark current” electrons, highly penetrating x-rays, and bursts of neutrons.
Strict safety protocols, heavy concrete and lead shielding, and rigorous atmospheric monitoring are required to protect the scientists and the local community. The dangers of accelerator technology are well documented. In 1991, an operator at an industrial accelerator in Maryland accidentally placed his hands into the electron beam path, resulting in severe radiation burns and the amputation of multiple fingers. Furthermore, software glitches in medical linear accelerators, such as the infamous Therac-25 accidents in the 1980s, resulted in massive radiation overdoses and patient deaths, highlighting how critical safety systems are in any radiation-producing environment.
The targets used to create elements via hot fusion—like americium-243—are inherently dangerous, long-lived radioactive materials. Handling these materials requires specialized robotic “hot cells.” Once an experiment is finished, the irradiated targets become highly classified nuclear waste that must be carefully managed to prevent environmental contamination.
Eventually, the accelerator facilities themselves will reach the end of their lifespans. Decommissioning these sites involves complex strategies, such as DECON (dismantling and removing all radioactive materials immediately) or SAFSTOR (locking the facility down and letting the ambient radioactivity naturally decay over decades before taking the building apart).
In the modern push for a circular economy, recycling is paramount. However, techniques like “urban mining” to recover precious metals from electronic waste are entirely inapplicable to Nihonium.
You cannot recycle Nihonium. Every single atom ever created has already destroyed itself through radioactive decay within seconds of its birth. Once it decays into roentgenium, the Nihonium is gone forever.
In terms of alternatives, scientists studying the unique chemical properties of superheavy elements cannot use synthetic substitutes for Nihonium itself. Instead, they study its lighter counterparts on the periodic table—like indium and thallium—to establish a baseline of normal chemical behavior. They then compare these lighter elements against other newly discovered superheavy neighbors, like Flerovium (114) and Moscovium (115), to piece together a broader understanding of how extreme relativity changes chemical rules.
While elements like gold and silver have rich mythological histories spanning thousands of years, the cultural meaning of Nihonium is entirely modern. It is a symbol of profound national pride, redemption, and human perseverance.
When the IUPAC granted the Japanese team the right to name Element 113, they chose the name “Nihonium” based on the word Nihon, which is one of the ways to say “Japan” in Japanese, translating directly to “the Land of the Rising Sun”.
The announcement triggered a wave of jubilation in Japan. Former RIKEN director Hideto En’yo noted that discovering an element had been “an impossible dream for Japanese people,” and the success caused the Japanese public to become “fanatics of the Periodic Table”. Nihonium quickly became a symbol of Japanese ingenuity, used as a point of pride by diplomats and ambassadors around the world. In art and education, such as the international Periodic Table Project, the element is often beautifully depicted using the red sun of the Japanese flag and traditional cherry blossom trees, forever linking the element’s identity to Japanese culture.
The story of Nihonium also highlights the deeply human, superstitious side of high-level physics. The leader of the discovery team, Dr. Kosuke Morita, spent 9 grueling years searching for the element. During that time, he developed a series of strict superstitions to court good luck. He made a point to travel on Japan’s National Route 113, he exclusively rode the No. 113 Shinkansen bullet train, and he made sure to donate exactly 113 Japanese yen to the collection box at every Shinto shrine he visited. As Morita himself stated, “We did everything we could do as researchers,” leaving the rest to fate.
Culturally, the naming of Nihonium was also an act of profound redemption. It vindicated the memory of Masataka Ogawa, the Japanese chemist who had mistakenly thought he discovered element 43 (“Nipponium”) in 1908. Because his name was rejected, Japan had carried the weight of that scientific failure for a century. The successful naming of Nihonium in 2016 was explicitly recognized as a respectful homage to Ogawa’s early, ambitious attempts to place Japan on the global scientific map.
Because there are no global reserves of Nihonium, we do not need to worry about “peak production” or running out of the element. Future sources like deep-sea mining or asteroid mining are completely irrelevant to superheavy elements. The future of Nihonium research is instead tied to two massive challenges in nuclear physics: the search for the “Island of Stability” and the quest to start the 8th row of the periodic table.
In nuclear physics, there is a widely accepted theory known as the “Island of Stability.” As atoms get heavier, they become more unstable. However, theoretical physics predicts that if an atom possesses specific “magic numbers” of protons and neutrons, its nucleus will form perfectly closed, stable shells. If scientists can synthesize an element with these magic numbers, the atom might live for days, years, or even millions of years, rather than milliseconds.
This theoretical “island” is predicted to exist around atomic number 114 (Flerovium) and neutron number 184. Nihonium, as element 113, sits on the very shores of this island. Current experiments show that as scientists add more neutrons to Nihonium (moving from Nihonium-278 to Nihonium-286), the element’s lifespan drastically increases. The future challenge is to design new accelerator experiments capable of packing even more neutrons into the nucleus to finally reach the shores of this stable island.
The discovery of Nihonium and its heavier neighbors (up to element 118, Oganesson) officially completed the 7th row of the periodic table. The global race has now shifted to a new frontier: discovering elements 119 and 120, which would begin an entirely new 8th row.
This is incredibly difficult. The “hot fusion” method using calcium-48 beams has reached its limit; there are no target materials heavy enough left to combine with calcium to reach element 119. Therefore, scientists at facilities like the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the US, and RIKEN in Japan, are developing brand new technologies using heavier beams made of titanium-50 and vanadium-51. These new beams are much harder to control, meaning the future of element discovery will require even more funding, global collaboration, and technological breakthroughs.
Ultimately, while climate change and the circular economy will not change the demand for Nihonium, the push for green energy may force “Big Science” to rethink how it powers the massive, energy-hungry particle accelerators needed to unlock the next secrets of the universe.
Because Nihonium is an intensely radioactive transactinide, understanding its nuclear dynamics is critical to understanding the element as a whole.
Nihonium is intrinsically unstable due to the sheer size of its nucleus. The primary way it attempts to reach a stable state is through a process called alpha (α) decay.
In alpha decay, the heavy nucleus violently ejects an alpha particle, which consists of two protons and two neutrons. By shedding this mass, the atom transforms into a slightly lighter element. For example, if we take the longest-lived isotope, Nihonium-286 (which has a half-life of roughly 9.5 to 20 seconds), it emits an alpha particle and instantly transforms into roentgenium-282.
This initiates a “decay chain.” The roentgenium will then decay into meitnerium, which decays into bohrium, then dubnium, and so on. This cascading process continues until the nucleus eventually undergoes spontaneous fission—a catastrophic event where the nucleus rips itself into two lighter, unequal halves, releasing a burst of energy and free neutrons. Because it predominantly emits alpha particles, the radiation from Nihonium is highly damaging to living tissue at close range, but it lacks the deep penetrating power of gamma radiation.
While Nihonium itself is not used as a nuclear fuel, its creation is deeply intertwined with the global nuclear fuel cycle. The “hot fusion” method relies on target materials like americium-243. Americium does not exist in nature; it is a byproduct created when uranium and plutonium are irradiated inside commercial nuclear power reactors.
Because elements like plutonium and americium can theoretically be used to construct nuclear weapons, their production, extraction, and transport are strictly monitored by international watchdogs under the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The laboratories that synthesize superheavy elements must adhere to rigorous international safeguards to ensure that these weapons-grade target materials are used strictly for peaceful scientific research.
Furthermore, the creation and use of these target materials generate long-term high-level nuclear waste. The disposal of actinides is a major global problem, as they remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. Countries manage this waste through complex geological disposal strategies, burying the spent material deep underground in stable rock formations to ensure it never enters the biosphere.
1. What exactly is Nihonium? Nihonium (chemical symbol Nh) is an extremely radioactive, artificially created chemical element. With an atomic number of 113, it belongs to the superheavy transactinide group on the periodic table and is categorized in Group 13 alongside elements like aluminium and thallium.
2. How did Nihonium get its name? The element was named by the team of scientists at the RIKEN institute in Japan who discovered it. The name comes from “Nihon,” which is one of the two ways to say “Japan” in Japanese, meaning “the Land of the Rising Sun.” It is the first element ever discovered and named by an Asian country.
3. Does Nihonium exist anywhere in nature or in outer space? No. While it might theoretically form for a fraction of a second during extreme cosmic events like the collision of two neutron stars (the r-process), its extreme radioactivity causes it to decay almost instantly. Therefore, there is absolutely no naturally occurring Nihonium on Earth or anywhere else in the observable universe.
4. How do scientists make Nihonium? It is manufactured inside massive machines called particle accelerators. Scientists create it by taking a beam of lighter atoms, speeding them up to nearly the speed of light, and smashing them into a target of heavier atoms. If the collision is perfect, the two atoms fuse together to form a single atom of Nihonium.
5. What does Nihonium look like? Because it decays in mere seconds and scientists have only ever made a few dozen atoms at a time, nobody has ever seen a chunk of Nihonium with the naked eye. However, based on its position in the periodic table, theoretical physicists confidently predict it would be a dense, solid, silvery-white or grey metal.
6. What are the practical everyday uses of Nihonium? There are no commercial, industrial, medical, or military uses for Nihonium. Its incredibly short half-life (lasting only seconds) and the exorbitant multi-million-dollar cost to produce a single atom restrict its use entirely to fundamental scientific research.
7. Why does Nihonium behave chemically more like Silver than Thallium? Because its nucleus has 113 protons, it exerts a massive pull on its electrons, forcing them to move at relativistic speeds (near the speed of light). This causes the electron orbits to shrink, locking the outer electrons in place (the inert pair effect). As a result, it prefers a +1 oxidation state, making its chemistry surprisingly similar to silver.
8. Is Nihonium dangerous to the environment? Because it does not exist in nature, it poses no natural environmental threat. There are no Nihonium mines to cause pollution or deforestation. The primary environmental concern is the massive carbon footprint generated by the electricity needed to run the particle accelerators used to study it.
9. What is the “Island of Stability”? The island of stability is a theoretical concept in physics. It suggests that if scientists can pack a specific, “magic number” of protons and neutrons into a superheavy element, the atom will become stable and might exist for years instead of milliseconds. Nihonium sits right on the edge of this predicted island.
10. What is the story of “Nipponium”? In 1908, a Japanese chemist named Masataka Ogawa believed he had discovered element 43, naming it Nipponium. It was later proven to be a mistake; he had actually found element 75 (rhenium). Because his claim was rejected, the name Nipponium could not be used again. The successful naming of Nihonium over a century later in 2016 was viewed as a redemption of Ogawa’s dream to place Japan on the periodic table.