tennessine

Tennessine is a synthetic chemical element with atomic number 117 and the symbol Ts. It was first synthesized in 2010 by an international team of researchers from Russia and the United States. The collaborating institutions included the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia; the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee; the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California; the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (RINR) in Dimitrovgrad, Russia; and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Tennessine has no practical applications other than pure research.

The element is named for the state of Tennessee, home to both Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Vanderbilt University, which participated in its discovery. The earliest mention of the name that I have found is in the April 2016 issue of Nature Chemistry, in which chemist Shawn Burdette speculated on what the name would be:

I have an inkling that the tripartite research collaboration between ORNL, LLNL and JINR on elements 115 and 117—while 118 is LLNL and JINR alone—is going to result in a compromise where each laboratory gets to take the lead on naming one of the three. ORNL is the outlier in the transuranium name game since they hadn’t been credited with an element before the most recent announcement. In pondering this, I wonder if they would follow suit with californium and use the state of Tennessee as the root name. I like the sound of “tennessine” as the halogen -ine suffix echoes the pronunciation of the state name itself.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the proposed name in a press release dated 8 June 2016:

For element with atomic number 117, the name proposed is tennessine with the symbol Ts. These are in line with tradition honoring a place or geographical region and are proposed jointly by the discoverers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russia), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), Vanderbilt University (USA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA).

[…]

Tennessine is in recognition of the contribution of the Tennessee region, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, to superheavy element research, including the production and chemical separation of unique actinide target materials for superheavy element synthesis at ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and Radiochemical Engineering Development Center (REDC).

IUPAC made the name official later that year.

Sources:

Burdette, Shawn C., et al. “Another Four Bricks in the Wall.” Nature Chemistry, 8.4, April 2016, 283–88 at 284. DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2482.

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). “IUPAC Is Naming the Four New Elements Nihonium, Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson” (press release), 8 June 2016. IUPAC.org.

Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements—Part 3—Rivalry of Scientists in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” Foundations of Chemistry, 12 November 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09452-9.

Photo credit: Unknown photographer, 2014, U.S. Department of Energy. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain photo.