1. List of the Known Transactinide Elements

• 104 Rutherfordium, Rf
• 105 Dubnium, Db
• 106 Seaborgium, Sg
• 107 Bohrium, Bh
• 108 Hassium, Hs
• 109 Meitnerium, Mt
• 110 Darmstadtium, Ds
• 111 Roentgenium, Rg
• 112 Copernicium, Cn
• 113 Nihonium, Nh
• 114 Flerovium, Fl
• 115 Moscovium, Mc
• 116 Livermorium, Lv
• 117 Tennessine, Ts
• 118 Oganesson, Og

Work performed from 1964 to 2013 at four laboratories – the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the USA, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the USSR (later Russia), the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, and RIKEN in Japan – identified and confirmed the elements from rutherfordium to oganesson according to the criteria of the IUPAC–IUPAP Transfermium Working Group and subsequent Joint Working Parties. These discoveries complete the seventh row of the periodic table.

The remaining two transactinides, ununennium (element 119) and unbinilium (element 120), have not yet been synthesized: they would begin an eighth period.

2. Characteristics

Due to their short half-lives (for example, the most stable isotope of rutherfordium has a half-life of 11 minutes, and half-lives decrease gradually going to the right of the group) and the low yield of the nuclear reactions that produce them, new methods have had to be created to determine their gas-phase and solution chemistry based on very small samples of a few atoms each. Relativistic effects become very important in this region of the periodic table, causing the filled 7s orbitals, empty 7p orbitals, and filling 6d orbitals to all contract inwards toward the atomic nucleus. This causes a relativistic stabilization of the 7s electrons and makes the 7p orbitals accessible in low excitation states.^[1]

Elements 104 to 112, rutherfordium through copernicium, form the 6d series of transition elements: for elements 104–108 and 112, experimental evidence shows them to behave as expected for their position in the periodic table. They are expected to have ionic radii between those of their 5d transition metal homologs and their actinide pseudohomologs: for example, Rf⁴⁺ is calculated to have ionic radius 76 pm, between the values for Hf⁴⁺ (71 pm) and Th⁴⁺ (94 pm). Their ions should also be less polarizable than those of their 5d homologs. Relativistic effects are expected to reach a maximum at the end of this series, at roentgenium (element 111) and copernicium (element 112). Nevertheless, many important properties of the transactinides are still not yet known experimentally, though theoretical calculations have been performed.^[1]

Elements 113 to 118, nihonium through oganesson, should form a 7p series, completing the seventh period in the periodic table. Their chemistry will be greatly influenced by the very strong relativistic stabilization of the 7s electrons and a strong spin-orbit coupling effect "tearing" the 7p subshell apart into two sections, one more stabilized (7p_1/2, holding two electrons) and one more destabilized (7p_3/2, holding four electrons). Additionally, the 6d electrons are still destabilized in this region and hence may be able to contribute some transition metal character to the first few 7p elements. Lower oxidation states should be stabilized here, continuing group trends, as both the 7s and 7p_1/2 electrons exhibit the inert pair effect. These elements are expected to largely continue to follow group trends, though with relativistic effects playing an increasingly larger role. In particular, the large 7p splitting results in an effective shell closure at flerovium (element 114) and a hence much higher than expected chemical activity for oganesson (element 118).^[1]

Element 118 is the last element that has been claimed to have been synthesized. The next two elements, elements 119 and 120, should form an 8s series and be an alkali and alkaline earth metal respectively. The 8s electrons are expected to be relativistically stabilized, so that the trend towards higher reactivity down these groups will reverse direction and the elements will behave more like their period 5 homologs, rubidium and strontium. Nevertheless, the 7p_3/2 orbital is still relativistically destabilized, potentially giving these elements larger ionic radii and perhaps even being able to participate chemically. In this region, the 8p electrons are also relativistically stabilized, resulting in a ground-state 8s²8p¹ valence electron configuration for element 121. Large changes are expected to occur in the subshell structure in going from element 120 to element 121: for example, the radius of the 5g orbitals should drop drastically, from 25 Bohr units in element 120 in the excited [Og]5g¹8s¹ configuration to 0.8 Bohr units in element 121 in the excited [Og]5g¹7d¹8s¹ configuration, in a phenomenon called "radial collapse" that occurs at element 125. Element 122 should add a further 7d electron to element 121's electron configuration. Elements 121 and 122 should be homologs of actinium and thorium, respectively.^[1]

Beyond element 121, the superactinide series is expected to begin, when the 8s electrons and the filling 8p_1/2, 7d_3/2, 6f_5/2, and 5g_7/2 subshells determine the chemistry of these elements. Complete and accurate CCSD calculations are not available for elements beyond 122 because of the extreme complexity of the situation: the 5g, 6f, and 7d orbitals should have about the same energy level, and in the region of element 160 the 9s, 8p_3/2, and 9p_1/2 orbitals should also be about equal in energy. This will cause the electron shells to mix so that the block concept no longer applies very well, and will also result in novel chemical properties that will make positioning these elements in a periodic table very difficult. For example, element 164 is expected to mix characteristics of the elements of group 10, 12, and 18.^[1]