Meitnerium

Meitnerium: the essentials

 Brief description: element 109, meitnerium, is a synthetic element that is not present in the environment at all. There is no dispute concerning the name meitnerium for element 109.

The interested reader should consult the on-line version of The Wonderful World of Atoms and Nuclei for a fascinating insight into research on "super-heavy" atoms.

Example chain: http://www.gsi.de/forschung/kp/kp2/ship/education/examchain.html

Isolation

Isolation: only a few atoms of element 109, meitnerium, have ever been made. The first atoms were made through a nuclear reaction involving fusion of an isotope of bismuth, ²⁰⁹Bi, with one of iron, ⁵⁸Fe.

²⁰⁹Bi + ⁵⁸Fe → ²⁶⁶Mt + ¹n

Isolation of an observable quantity of meitnerium has never been achieved, and may well never be. This is because meitnerium decays very rapidly through the emission of α-particles.

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