Tennessine
Tennessine is a synthetic superheavy element and the second-heaviest halogen on the periodic table, sitting below astatine. It was created by a multinational collaboration that included Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, alongside the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia — the source of its name. Among the rarest substances ever made, only a small number of tennessine atoms have ever been confirmed to exist.
- Group · Period
- 17 · 7
- At room temp
- solid
- Melts at
- Not yet available
- Density
- Not yet available
- Discovered
- 2010
Uses
Tennessine has no practical, industrial or medical use of any kind, and its extraordinary scarcity means it never will. Its value is entirely scientific: each atom detected helps researchers test theories of nuclear stability and extend the periodic table closer to its outer limits.
History
Tennessine was first synthesized in 2010 by a multinational team that included the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States. Producing it required first manufacturing a target of berkelium, a rare artificial element in its own right, which was then bombarded with an accelerated beam of calcium nuclei. It was named tennessine after Tennessee, honoring the state home to several of the American institutions involved, with the name formally adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in 2016.
Fun facts
- Tennessine is named after the U.S. state of Tennessee, home to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Vanderbilt University, both part of the collaboration that helped create it.
- Only a handful of tennessine atoms — commonly cited in the tens at most — have ever been detected across all experiments performed.
- Even though it's classified as a halogen alongside chlorine and iodine, tennessine's extreme scarcity means no one has ever actually observed its chemical reactions.
Frequently asked questions
Does tennessine have any real-world use?
No — tennessine has no commercial, industrial or medical applications. It exists purely as a subject of nuclear physics research, produced only a few atoms at a time.
How is tennessine made?
Tennessine is produced by accelerating a beam of calcium nuclei and firing it at a target made of berkelium, itself a rare artificial element that had to be specially manufactured for the experiment. Successful fusions are confirmed through the specific chain of radioactive decays each new atom produces.
Does tennessine behave chemically like other halogens?
It's predicted to, based on its position in the periodic table and some theoretical calculations, but this has never actually been tested. So few atoms of tennessine have ever existed, and so briefly, that no one has been able to observe how it reacts with anything.
Isotopes
2 known isotopes
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| Isotope | Natural abundance | Half-life | Decay mode | Mass excess | Binding energy / nucleon | Decay width |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ts-293 | — | 21 ms | Alpha decay (100%), Spontaneous fission (6%) | 194,428 keV | 7,095 keV | 2.17 × 10-14 eV |
| Ts-294 | — | 51 ms | Alpha decay (100%) | 196,397 keV | 7,092 keV | 8.95 × 10-15 eV |