Nomenclature Of Elements – Atomic Number | Chemical Nomenclature

Introduction

As per the modern periodic table, there are 118 elements that are known to man today, of which 24 are synthetically prepared while the rest are naturally occurring. Some of these elements were discovered much before and the other elements have been discovered recently by a team headed by Glen Seaborg at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Many of these elements have been assigned their names and symbols but still, these symbols and names are not used universally. Some of them are given two names/symbols. For example, The discovery of an element having Z = 104 is claimed by both American and Soviet scientists. The Americans gave it the name Rutherfordium (Rf) whereas Soviet assigned it the name Kurchatovium (Ku). In the same way, another element having an atomic number equal to 107 named as Neilsbohrium (Ns) as well as Bohrium (Bh).

To eliminate all these issues, IUPAC made a commission on nomenclature of inorganic chemistry (CNIC) to assign a clear system of nomenclature for elements having Z> 100 (also known as superheavy elements). After having discussions with scientists all over the world, in 1997 the IUPAC decided the official names for elements with atomic number 104 to 110 and recommended a system for nomenclature of these elements.

The important points of this nomenclature system for the elements with atomic numbers more than 100 are:

1. The names can directly be written from atomic numbers by writing numerical roots of required number from number 0-9 and then by adding the suffix ‘ium’. A mixture of Latin and Greek roots is used so that there is no duplicity in the symbol. The roots for 0-9 are shown in the table given below:

Roots for IUPAC nomenclature of elements

Digit	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Root	nil	un	bi	tri	quad	pent	hex	sept	oct	enn
Abbreviation	n	u	b	t	q	p	h	s	o	e

2. In some cases, the names are minimized. For example, bi ium can be written as bium.
3. The symbol of an element can be given by writing the roots of all the numbers in the atomic number of that element and adding the suffix ‘ium’ to it.

For example:

Z	Recommended name	Symbol
101	Unnilunium	Unu
111	Unununium	Uuu

The diagram of the periodic table is given below”