Dubnium

Dubnium is a chemical element. It has the symbol Db and it has the atomic number 105. It is a very radioactive element that does not exist in nature. It has to be made in a lab. It is a transuranium element created by bombarding californium-249 with nitrogen-15 nuclei. The isotope that has the longest half-life only has a half life of 32 hours. Dubnium is a transactinide element.

History

The Soviet Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) had said they first discovered the element in 1968, followed by the American Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1970. Both teams shared their names for the new element and used them without formal approval. The long-standing argument was settled in 1993 by an official investigation of the discovery claims by the Transfermium Working Group, formed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, resulting in credit for the discovery being officially shared between both teams. The element was then named dubnium in 1997 after the town of Dubna, the site of the JINR.

Uses

There are no current uses for Dubnium seeing as its too radioactive and ts short half life makes it almost impossible to work with.

Chemistry

Hypothesized research says that dubnium is a member of group 5 in the 6d series of transition metals, placing it under vanadium, niobium, and tantalum. Dubnium should share most properties, such as its valence electron configuration and having a mainly +5 oxidation state, with the other group 5 elements, with a few exceptions due to relativistic effects. Limited research of dubnium chemistry has confirmed this. Solution chemistry experiments have shown that dubnium often behaves more like niobium rather than tantalum, breaking periodic trends.

Dubnium Media

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  A chart of nuclide stability as used by JINR in 2012. Characterized isotopes are shown with borders.

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  Relativistic (solid line) and nonrelativistic (dashed line) radial distribution of the 7s valence electrons in dubnium.

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  Relativistic stabilization of the ns orbitals, the destabilization of the (n-1)d orbitals and their spin–orbit splitting for the group 5 elements.

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  Relativistic (rel) and nonrelativistic (nr) values of the effective charge (QM) and overlap population (OP) in MCl5, where M = V, Nb, Ta, and Db