DOE/LANL Jurisdiction Fire Danger Rating:

Hassium

108

269

Hassium

Element Stats

Select a temperature unit to update boiling and melting point values.

Physical

Physical Properties
Property	Value	Property	Value
Appearance	Appearance unknown; only a few atoms have ever been produced
Classification	Transition Metals	Density	27–29 g/cm³, predicted
Boiling Point	--	Melting Point	--

Atomic

Atomic Properties
Property	Value	Property	Value
Atomic Number	108	Atomic Mass	269
Van Der Waals Radius	--	Atomic Radius (empirical)	126, estimated

Electronic & Chemical

Electronic and Chemical Properties
Property	Value	Property	Value
Electronegativity	--	Electron Affinity	--
Electron Configuration	1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 4s² 3d¹⁰ 4p⁶ 5s² 4d¹⁰ 5p⁶ 6s² 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6p⁶ 7s² 5f¹⁴ 6d⁶
Oxidation States	(3), (4), (6), 8 — (predicted)
Ionization Energies	Showing 5 of 8 ionization energies. 730 kJ/mol 1760 kJ/mol 2830 kJ/mol 3640 kJ/mol 4940 kJ/mol

History

Scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in the Soviet Union first attempted to create element 108 in 1978. They did this by bombarding radium-226 with calcium-48. Although the JINR team thought that they had discovered the new element, they weren’t sure of their results.

In 1984, a team at Germany’s Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) proved the creation of element 108 by bombarding lead-208 with iron-58. Avid Baywatch fans, the scientists named the new element hassium, after David Hasselhoff. Just kidding! Hassium’s name was really inspired by Hesse, the state where GSI is located.

Properties

Hassium is an extremely radioactive element, with its longest-lived isotope having a half-life of a mere 10 seconds! Because hassium decays so quickly, scientists don’t know for sure what the element’s qualities are. However, it’s thought that hassium’s properties should be like those of osmium and the platinum group metals, given its placement on the periodic table. Hassium should have a high melting point. It should be a slightly noble metal, making it resistant to corrosion.

Uses

Hassium has no known uses beyond fundamental research.

Forms

Thirteen hassium isotopes have been created, with mass numbers ranging from 263 to 277. None of these isotopes occur naturally and all of them are unstable (radioactive).

Many hassium isotopes have half-lives of only milliseconds—less time than it takes to blink! The element’s most stable isotope, hassium-269, has a half-life of only around 10 seconds.

Sources

Hassium is a synthetic element, meaning that as far as scientists can tell, it doesn’t occur in nature. Hassium is made by bombarding the atoms of one element with the atoms of another inside a linear accelerator, like the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE).

Fun Facts

What's in a name?

Naming element 108 was a saga! Although the researchers who discovered the element wanted to call the element “hassium,” after the German state in which their laboratory was based, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) wanted to name the element “hahnium,” after Otto Hahn, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist (a name that American researchers had once proposed for element 105, now known as dubnium). It wasn’t until 1997 that the IUPAC changed its mind and decided to name the element “hassium” after all.

DOE/LANL Jurisdiction Fire Danger Rating:

Hassium

108

269

Hassium

Element Stats

Select a temperature unit to update boiling and melting point values.

Physical

Physical Properties
Property	Value	Property	Value
Appearance	Appearance unknown; only a few atoms have ever been produced
Classification	Transition Metals	Density	27–29 g/cm³, predicted
Boiling Point	--	Melting Point	--

Atomic

Atomic Properties
Property	Value	Property	Value
Atomic Number	108	Atomic Mass	269
Van Der Waals Radius	--	Atomic Radius (empirical)	126, estimated

Electronic & Chemical

Electronic and Chemical Properties
Property	Value	Property	Value
Electronegativity	--	Electron Affinity	--
Electron Configuration	1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 4s² 3d¹⁰ 4p⁶ 5s² 4d¹⁰ 5p⁶ 6s² 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6p⁶ 7s² 5f¹⁴ 6d⁶
Oxidation States	(3), (4), (6), 8 — (predicted)
Ionization Energies	Showing 5 of 8 ionization energies. 730 kJ/mol 1760 kJ/mol 2830 kJ/mol 3640 kJ/mol 4940 kJ/mol

History

Properties

Uses

Hassium has no known uses beyond fundamental research.

Forms

Thirteen hassium isotopes have been created, with mass numbers ranging from 263 to 277. None of these isotopes occur naturally and all of them are unstable (radioactive).

Many hassium isotopes have half-lives of only milliseconds—less time than it takes to blink! The element’s most stable isotope, hassium-269, has a half-life of only around 10 seconds.