Chemistry International
Vol. 22, No. 6
November 2000
IUPAC Celebrates
80 Years of Service to Chemistry with Commemorative Periodic Table
The right to name a new element has traditionally been accorded by
the scientific community to the discoverer(s) after claims have been
established beyond a doubt. Since 1947, names suggested by discoverers
have been reviewed for suitability by the IUPAC Commission
on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (II.2), and the accepted
name has been forwarded for approval to the IUPAC Council. To avoid
confusion, discoverers are asked to use an atomic number rather than
a name in the literature until approval of a proposed name is received
from IUPAC. If a particular name has been used unofficially for a given
element but a different name is ultimately chosen, the first name cannot
be transferred at a later time to designate a different element.
The most recent process of review and approval of the names for elements
101-109 (IUPAC Recommendations 1997) appeared in Pure
and Appl. Chem.
Vol. 69, No. 12, pp. 2471-2473 (1997), and a summary was published
in Chem. Int. Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 37-38 (1998). Because claims
of the synthesis of heavy elements can be controversial, a joint Working
Party of the International Unions of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)
and Physics (IUPAP) has been established to review published details
and assign priority in the discovery. This procedure was applied to
elements 101-109, and it is now in force for elements 110 and beyond.
A more complete report on the procedures for naming new elements is
in now preparation for submittal to Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Prof.
Herbert D. Kaesz (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University
of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569, USA;
E-mail: [email protected]), Chairman
of the IUPAC Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (II.2),
has submitted the brief text above to accompany the commemorative periodic
table inserted in the mailing with this issue of Chemistry International.
The material above has been excerpted from a paper currently in preparation
by Prof. W. H. Koppenol
(a former Titular Member and Secretary of Commission II.2) on the procedures
for naming new elements, and it incorporates suggestions offered by
Prof. John Corish
(President of IUPAC's Inorganic Chemistry Division) and Dr.
Gerd M. Rosenblatt (Vice President of Division).