Element 114 has been made and confirmed in the laboratory but elements 113, 115, 116, 117 and 118 are predicted but still to be made.
Temporary names assigned to elements 113 to 118 are: Ununtrium, Ununquadium, Ununpentium, Ununhexium, Ununseptiumand Ununoctium.
The periodic table is set to get bigger, now that three labs have independently made atoms of element 114. There’s still one big uncertainty though – should it be classified as a metal or as a noble gas?
In February 2010, an element with 112 protons in its atomic nucleus was recognised and named Copernicium by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). A similar honour should shortly be on the way for element 114. Ununquadium is the temporary name with the temporary symbol Uuq and atomic number114.
In 1999, researchers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, claimed to have made atoms of element 114, but no confirmation was available. Now teams at two other laboratories say they have produced it.
One team was led by Heino Nitsche and Ken Gregorich at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The other was led by Christoph Düllmann at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany.
Element 114’s likely chemical properties remain in doubt, however. One prediction suggests it is a noble gas, while another indicates it has properties similar to lead.
The k2p blog 