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Specialty Chemistry Forums => Nuclear Chemistry and Radiochemistry Forum => Topic started by: gippgig on February 19, 2009, 12:50:55 AM

Title: No element 120
Post by: gippgig on February 19, 2009, 12:50:55 AM

A recent paper (Physical Review C 79 024603) reports the failure of JINR(Dubna)'s attempt to make element 120 using the ²⁴⁴Pu + ⁵⁸Fe reaction. This is not at all surprising since this reaction was expected to have a small cross section. ²⁴⁸Cm(of course, ²⁵⁰Cm should be even better) + ⁵⁴Cr seems to be a more promising possibility. ²⁵²Cf + ⁵⁰Ti should also be a good candidate.
Another paper (PRC 79 024608) reports the failure by the same lab to produce hassium using the ¹³⁶Xe + ¹³⁶Xe reaction. This is an interesting variant of the cold fusion approach - instead of using a random projectile on a doubly magic target it used a singly magic projectile on a singly magic target which should have an equivalent stabilization advantage. It appears that fusion is strongly hindered as the size of the projectile relative to the target increases.
In both cases the cross section limits are not very strict (roughly 1 & 4 pb respectively).