Names and symbols of transfermium elements (IUPAC recommendations 1994)

The Transfermium Working Group (TWG) was set up in 1986 under the joint auspices of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). Its conclusions, duly endorsed by IUPAC and IUPAP, were published in the following three reports: 1. Criteria that must be satisfied for the discovery of a new chemical element to be recognized, Pure & Appl. Chem., 63, 879-886 (1991). 2. Discovery of the transfermium elements: Introduction to the discovery profiles, Pure & Appl. Chem., 65, 1757-1763 (1993). 3, Discovery of the transfermium elements: Discovery profiles of the transfermium elements, Pure & Appl. Chem., 65, 1764-1814 (1993). IUPAC went a stage further by inviting responses on reports 2 and 3 from the three major groups concerned, i.e., Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna; and Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung , Darmstadt. These responses together with the TWG's reply to the responses were published unedited in Pure & Appl. Chem., Vol. 65, (1993), pp. 1815-1824

Names and symbols for the transfermium elements

The recommendations (ref. 1) of the Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (CNIC) on the nomenclature of the transfermium elements (101-109, inclusive) were considered by the IUPAC Bureau at Guildford (UK) in September 1995. As a result of the various criticisms of the recommendations and theway that they had been processed, the Bureau decided to adopt the recommendations as provisional and to circulate them to national/regional nomenclature centres in the normal way, with notices to be published innational/regional chemistry journals and magazines, requesting submission of comments to CNIC. In particular, the National Adhering Organizations (NAOs) were invited to express their views concerning the extant proposals for the names of these elements and the principles and traditions used to derive them. The response from the general chemical community was small, and the bulk of the replies came from nuclear scientists