Bohrium is a highly radioactive metal.

Fact Box

Uses

At present, bohrium is of research interest only.

History

In 1975 a team led by Yuri Oganessian at the Russian Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, bombarded bismuth with chromium and produced element 107, isotope-261. They published the results of their successful run in 1976 and submitted a discovery claim.

In 1981, a team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the German nuclear research institute the Geselleschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) bombarded bismuth with chromium and they succeeded in making a single atom of isotope 262. Now followed a period of negotiation to establish who discovered elements 107 first and thereby had the right to name it.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) said that the GSI should be awarded the discovery because they had the more credible submission, but that the JINR were probably the first to make it.