Technetium is the first artificially produced element. Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist who created the periodic table, is the first person to predict the existence of technetium, atomic number 43. But he called it eka-manganese. Three scientists: lda Take, Walter Noddack, and Otto Berg examined some platinum ores and columbite minerals in hopes of discovering eka-manganese and rhenium, atomic number 75.
They published the X-ray analysis of their experiment and claimed that they found 2 new elements. Element 43 was named as masurium by them. But their findings were disregarded by the scientific community then. After three years, their finding of rhenium, element 75, was approved but masurium was not.
Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segre were credited with the discovery of technetium at the University of Palermo in Italy in 1937.
It is the first element that was created synthetically. Technetium was derived from the Greek word ‘technetos’, which means artificial. Technetium is a silver grey metal that is rare. It gets damaged slowly in moist air.
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