Studying the mechanism of metal extraction with ionic liquids

The heaviest known elements are the so-called "superheavy" elements, those with atomic numbers greater than 103. These elements are found only in laboratories, where they are made by fusing together two lighter elements. This process is unlikely to occur, so scientists have only tiny amounts (a few atoms) for experiments, and chemists are interested in the chemical properties of these elements. However, the small amounts of material available means chemists must use special techniques to study them. New research has developed a way to study the chemistry of metallic elements with extremely low concentrations of material. These techniques use ionic liquids—salts in liquid states.

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