Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: The IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party on the priority of claims to the discovery of new elements has reviewed the relevant literature pertaining to several claims. In accordance with the criteria for the discovery of elements, previously established by the 1992 IUPAC/IUPAP Transfermium Working Group, and reinforced by the 1999 IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party, it was determined that the claim by the Hofmann et al. research collaboration for the discovery of element 111 at Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) has fulfilled those criteria. For elements 112, 114, and 116, the collaborations of Hofmann et al. and of Oganessian et al. produced high-quality data with plausible interpretations. However, confirmation by further results is needed to assign priority of discovery for these elements. The working party was not persuaded that other collaborations have satisfied the discovery criteria.