Russian scientists get ready to obtain element 118

Russian scientists are getting ready to obtain super-heavy element 118 on the periodic table.

The press service of the State Research Center 'Scientific Research Institute for Nuclear Reactors' (GNTs NIIAR) at Dimitrovgrad disclosed that the center's scientists are to take part in an experiment due at a scientific center in Dubna north of Moscow next year. It should take the scientists about half a year to prepare the research.

The experiment will be jointly conducted by physicists of three Russian research institutions: the Unified Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, the Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics at Sarov, Volga River Region, and Dimitrovgrad's GNTs NIIAR.

In 1999, America's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory claimed its researchers had been able to synthesize element 118, which they named ununocticum. However, physicists in Japan and Germany failed to replicate the experiment the Americans had patented, one reason why element 118 came to be thought of as particularly elusive.

On July 27, US scientists publicly acknowledged an error and retracted their discovery.

GNTs NIIAR general director Alexei Grachyov said in a statement:

"Errors in science are possible and unavoidable, particularly in the field of it that studies the life of elementary particles." Scientists at NIIAR hope the periodic table will not go without element 118 too long. But if the experiment is successful, that element would almost certainly have a different name, the press service noted.