Ninovium

The word Ninovium originates from Victor Ninov's surname, following with the suffix -ium, which is used indicate an entity that is an element according to the IUPAC rules.

Ninov's team claimed the discovery of two superheavy nuclei of previously undiscovered elements, one with 118 protons and an atomic mass number of 293, and its daughter isotope with 116 protons and a mass of 289. These marked the beginning of a claimed chain of repeated alpha decay terminating at or after seaborgium-269.^[3]

As transactinides, the two nuclei would be theoretically expected to exhibit properties similar to other superheavy elements, such as high instability and extremely short half-lives.^[1] Ninov and members of his team claimed that the observed decay chains, with millisecond half-lives and high-energy alpha decay, were evidence of the hypothesised island of stability.^{[3][citation needed]}

In 1999, Victor Ninov, along with his team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, reported the creation of element 118 based on observed decay chains. However, further attempts to recreate the element weren't successful. Berkeley Laboratory allowed an investigation to take place in 2001, which later revealed that data in the report was manually modified. Ninov was convicted to be the fabricator of the report, but he denied all allegations of the investigation.^[1][2]

In 2002, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia, Dubna has acquired element 118 with use of Californium and Calcium, and named it Oganesson. Research was published in 2006 and International tests confirmed that the element was indeed acquired. Since then Ninov's formula for acquiring 118th element hasn't been proven working.

The controversy surrounding Ninovium's discovery led to allegations of scientific misconduct against Victor Ninov, ultimately resulting in his dismissal from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2002.

Both elements 116^[4] and 118^[5] have since been verifiably synthesised, and given the names livermorium and oganesson respectively. Neither of the specific isotopes claimed to have been synthesised by Ninov's reaction, now properly named as livermorium-289 and oganesson-293, have been replicated as of June 2024.