Talk:Protactinium

Discovery

Pubchem states that " IUPAC who officially named it protactinium and confirmed Hahn and Meitner as co-discoverers". The infobox and text says different. What to do? (and: what means 'co-discoverers': the two together or 'co' with Fajan and Gohring?). -DePiep (talk) 19:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Template:Ping With these radioelements there tends to be a conflation between discovering the isotope and the element. In the past the most stable isotope gave the element its name, thus causing the confusion. Hahn and Meitner were the first to discover ²³¹Pa; in the past, "protactinium" also meant this isotope as well as the element. But Fajans and Göhring had discovered ²³⁴Pa years before.

A similar confusion goes on with radon. The most stable isotope, ²²²Rn, was discovered in 1900 by Dorn. The fact that Rutherford and Owens had already discovered ²²⁰Rn the previous year is generally overlooked. Double sharp (talk) 08:37, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Crystal structure of PaF₅

Greenwood&Earnshaw mentions PaF₅ and β-UF₅ are 7-coordinated, which comes from this citation they cited. This is outdated, as the crystal structure of β-UF₅ was revised around the same time, it is actually 8-coordinated. However I'm not sure could we write "PaF₅ is 8-coordinated" into the article, as they have the same structure.

"PaF₅ is monoclinic" part comes out from nowhere, only PaCl₅ is monoclinic, and Greenwood&Earnshaw does not mention these compounds crystal structure. PaF₅ is actually tetragonal, just like β-UF₅. --Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 07:29, 9 June 2025 (UTC)