What type of gas is xenon

A measure of the propensity of a substance to evaporate. It is defined as the equilibrium pressure exerted by the gas produced above a substance in a closed system. This Site has been carefully prepared for your visit, and we ask you to honour and agree to the following terms and conditions when using this Site. Copyright of and ownership in the Images reside with Murray Robertson.

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Jump to main content. Periodic Table. Glossary Allotropes Some elements exist in several different structural forms, called allotropes. Glossary Group A vertical column in the periodic table. Fact box. Glossary Image explanation Murray Robertson is the artist behind the images which make up Visual Elements.

Appearance The description of the element in its natural form. Biological role The role of the element in humans, animals and plants. Natural abundance Where the element is most commonly found in nature, and how it is sourced commercially. Uses and properties. Image explanation. This is usually a tube filled with xenon gas, with electrodes at each end and a metal trigger plate at the middle of the tube.

A colourless, odourless gas. It is very unreactive. Xenon is used in certain specialised light sources. It produces a beautiful blue glow when excited by an electrical discharge.

Xenon lamps have applications as high-speed electronic flash bulbs used by photographers, sunbed lamps and bactericidal lamps used in food preparation and processing. Xenon lamps are also used in ruby lasers. Xenon ion propulsion systems are used by several satellites to keep them in orbit, and in some other spacecraft. Xenon difluoride is used to etch silicon microprocessors. It is also used in the manufacture of 5-fluorouracil, a drug used to treat certain types of cancer.

Biological role. Xenon has no known biological role. It is not itself toxic, but its compounds are highly toxic because they are strong oxidising agents. Natural abundance. Xenon is present in the atmosphere at a concentration of 0. It can also be found in the gases that evolve from certain mineral springs. It is obtained commercially by extraction from liquid air. Help text not available for this section currently.

Elements and Periodic Table History. They had already extracted neon, argon, and krypton from liquid air, and wondered if it contained other gases. The wealthy industrialist Ludwig Mond gave them a new liquid-air machine and they used it to extract more of the rare gas krypton. By repeatedly distilling this, they eventually isolated a heavier gas, and when they examined this in a vacuum tube it gave a beautiful blue glow.

They called the new gas xenon. It was this gas which Neil Bartlett eventually showed was not inert by making a fluorine derivative in So far more than xenon compounds have been made. Atomic data. Glossary Common oxidation states The oxidation state of an atom is a measure of the degree of oxidation of an atom. Oxidation states and isotopes. Glossary Data for this section been provided by the British Geological Survey. Relative supply risk An integrated supply risk index from 1 very low risk to 10 very high risk.

Recycling rate The percentage of a commodity which is recycled. Substitutability The availability of suitable substitutes for a given commodity. Reserve distribution The percentage of the world reserves located in the country with the largest reserves.

Political stability of top producer A percentile rank for the political stability of the top producing country, derived from World Bank governance indicators. Political stability of top reserve holder A percentile rank for the political stability of the country with the largest reserves, derived from World Bank governance indicators.

Supply risk. Relative supply risk Unknown Crustal abundance ppm 0. Young's modulus A measure of the stiffness of a substance. Shear modulus A measure of how difficult it is to deform a material. Bulk modulus A measure of how difficult it is to compress a substance. Vapour pressure A measure of the propensity of a substance to evaporate.

Pressure and temperature data — advanced. Listen to Xenon Podcast Transcript :. You're listening to Chemistry in its element brought to you by Chemistry World , the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

This week we enter the stranger realms of chemistry as we hear the story of xenon. He's Peter Wothers. When William Ramsay named his newly-discovered element after the Greek Xenon for stranger, I'm sure he had no idea just how strange and important this element would turn out to be. He could never have foreseen that his discovery would one day be used to light our roads at night, image the workings of a living lung, or propel spaceships.

The story of xenon begins in when Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay were investigating why nitrogen extracted from chemical compounds is about one-half per cent lighter than nitrogen extracted from the air - an observation first made by Henry Cavendish years earlier. Ramsay found that after atmospheric nitrogen has reacted with hot magnesium metal, a tiny proportion of a heavier and even less reactive gas is left over.

They named this gas argon from the Greek for lazy or inactive to reflect its extreme inertness. The problem was, where did this new element fit into Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements? There were no other known elements that it resembled, which led them to suspect that there was a whole family of elements yet to be discovered. Remarkably, this turned out to be the case. The following year, Ramsay confirmed the presence in certain radioactive rocks of the lightest member of the group, helium, trapped as it was formed during the alpha-particle emission from elements such as uranium.

In Ramsay boldly stated that 'there should be an undiscovered element between helium and argon, with an atomic weight of Both krypton and xenon are found in the atmosphere. In fact, you are breathing some right now.

Both are produced by extraction from the air using cryogenic distillation through the same collection process in a roughly 10 to 1 ratio, krypton to xenon. They are found in the atmosphere at that ratio. Krypton is found in air at about 1 ppm and xenon is in the air at less than ppb.

Ignoring the frequent volatility of the krypton and xenon markets and, of course, the laws of supply and demand apply. Compared to other noble gases, krypton and xenon are heavy atoms. Krypton has a mass of 84 amu, and xenon has a mass of amu, which makes xenon the heaviest of all the stable noble gases radon undergoes radioactive decay, with a half-life of less than 4 days.

This heavier mass comes into play with sputter deposition. Argon is most frequently used for sputtering, transferring target atoms to a substrate to create a coating. It is cheap and works best for coating with light target atoms, but a higher yield is obtained when the inert gas has a similar atomic mass to the target atom. Krypton and xenon are used for heavier coatings like titanium.

The mass is also important when etching semiconductor materials. The higher mass of xenon also contributes to making it more efficient to use for electric propulsion of spacecraft. In this application, the xenon is ionized and ejected from a spacecraft at hundreds of kilometers per second. We sell xenon to NASA for this application. Krypton can also be used for space propulsion, but due to the lower mass, almost twice as many atoms would be needed as compared to xenon.

If atoms lighter than krypton are used, still more atoms need to be ionized and ejected to generate the same thrust. The large masses also lead to slower diffusion of both gases. This slower diffusion makes for better insulation, slower transfer of heat when used in double or triple pane windows or in lightbulbs.

Both insulate better than air or argon. The element is not known to occur in the Earth's crust. Lead canisters used to store radioactive xenon for medical diagnostic purposes. Nine naturally occurring isotopes of xenon exist. They are xenon, xenon, xenon, xenon, xenon, xenon, xenon, xenon, and xenon Isotopes are two or more forms of an element.

Isotopes differ from each other according to their mass number. The number written to the right of the element's name is the mass number. The mass number represents the number of protons plus neutrons in the nucleus of an atom of the element. The number of protons determines the element, but the number of neutrons in the atom of any one element can vary.

Each variation is an isotope. At least 18 radioactive isotopes of xenon are known also. A radioactive isotope is one that breaks apart and gives off some form of radiation. Radioactive isotopes are produced when very small particles are fired at atoms. These particles stick in the atoms and make them radioactive.

Two radioactive isotopes of xenon—xenon and xenon—are used in medicine. These isotopes are used to study the flow of blood through the brain and the flow of air through the lungs. In most cases, the patient inhales the radioactive gas through a mask. The xenon gas moves through the body just like oxygen or any other gas.

As it travels through the body, the xenon isotope gives off radiation. The radiation can be detected by measuring devices held over the body. Doctors can tell whether the patient's lungs are working properly. Xenon is produced in the same way it was discovered.

Liquid air is allowed to evaporate. When most other gases have boiled off, xenon is left behind. The techniques used today are much better than those used by Ramsay and Travers, of course. It is now relatively easy to capture the xenon gas in air by this method. The primary use of xenon is in lamps. When an electric current is passed through a gas, it can give off light. Fluorescent lamps and "neon" lights are examples of this process.

The kind and color of light given off depend on the gas used in the lamp. Xenon is used when a very bright, sun-like light is needed. For example, the flash units and bright lights used by photographers are often made with xenon gas. Ultraviolet lights used to sterilize laboratory equipment may also contain xenon. The light produced is strong enough to kill bacteria. Xenon is also used in the manufacture of strobe lights.

A strobe light produces a very bright, intense light in very short pulses. Strobe lights appear to "freeze" the movement of an object. Each time the light flashes on, it shines on the moving object for a fraction of a second. The object's motion can be broken down into any number of very short intervals. So far, xenon compounds are only laboratory curiosities.

They have no practical applications. See under "Chemical properties.