How is xenon used in everyday life

Is this pure krypton, at a pressure which does not bring out the yellow and green, or a new gas? Probably the latter! Ramsay and Travers wanted to name the new gas after its colour, but found that all the Greek and Latin roots indicating blue had long before been appropriated by organic chemists.

Instead, they settled on the name xenon, the stranger. It took Travers and Ramsay many months before they could isolate enough xenon to determine its density. This is not surprising since xenon is by far the least abundant of the noble gases in the atmosphere: by volume, about 1 per cent of the air is argon, 18 parts per million neon, 5 ppm helium, 1 ppm krypton and just 0.

Xenon currently finds its uses as the free element. The most effective car headlamps currently available contain xenon gas at pressures of a couple of atmospheres. Its role is to immediately provide light on switching on before some of the other components are properly vaporised. Being so heavy, and yet chemically inert, it is used in electrostatic ion thrusters to move satellites in space.

Atoms of xenon are ionised, then accelerated to speeds of around 30 kilometres per second before being flung out the back of the engine. These ions are forced backwards, propelling the satellite forward in the opposite direction. Xenon, a stable isotope that makes up about a quarter of naturally occurring xenon, turns out to be ideal for use in magnetic resonance imaging.

Usually these instruments only detect hydrogen nuclei in water and fats - ideal for most tissue, but are of no use when looking at air spaces such as the lungs. Not only can xenon be detected when breathed into the lungs, it can also be detected dissolved in the blood allowing the functions of a working-living lung to be studied in real time.

But perhaps the strangest property of this supposedly inert gas, is that in higher concentrations it is physiologically active in the body and can act as an anaesthetic. It is usually too expensive to use as such, but this could become more common if it can be recycled. In April , xenon made headline news, as it was first used in the treatment of a baby born with no pulse and not breathing.

By cooling the baby and treating with xenon gas to reduce the release of neurotransmitters, brain damage to the baby was avoided. Welcome to the strange world of xenon. So car headlamps, propelling satellites and saving the lives of babies. That was Cambridge University's Pete Wothers with the strange and diverse chemistry of xenon. Now next week, chemistry at the post office. This led to an amusing situation whereby people could try to send letters or postcards to Seaborg by using nothing but a sequence of symbols of various elements in the following order.

First of all one could write Sg for element or Seaborg's name. The second line consisted of Bk for this week's element 97 or the University at which Seaborg worked. The third line was Cf for element 98, californium, or the state in which the university stands. Finally, if writing from abroad, the correspondent could add Am for element 95, or americium, or the country of America to complete the address.

To the credit of several postal systems around the world a handful of people did indeed succeed in getting letters and messages of congratulations to Seaborg in this cryptic fashion. And to find out how Seaborg and his team set about discovering the element in the middle of that chemical address, berkelium, join Eric Scerri in next week's Chemistry in its element.

Until then thank you for listening, I'm Meera Senthilingam. Chemistry in its element is brought to you by the Royal Society of Chemistry and produced by thenakedscientists. There's more information and other episodes of Chemistry in its element on our website at chemistryworld. Click here to view videos about Xenon. View videos about. Help Text.

Learn Chemistry : Your single route to hundreds of free-to-access chemistry teaching resources. We hope that you enjoy your visit to this Site. We welcome your feedback. Data W. Haynes, ed. Version 1. Coursey, D. Schwab, J. Tsai, and R. Dragoset, Atomic Weights and Isotopic Compositions version 4. Periodic Table of Videos , accessed December Podcasts Produced by The Naked Scientists.

Download our free Periodic Table app for mobile phones and tablets. Explore all elements. D Dysprosium Dubnium Darmstadtium. E Europium Erbium Einsteinium. F Fluorine Francium Fermium Flerovium. G Gallium Germanium Gadolinium Gold.

I Iron Indium Iodine Iridium. K Krypton. O Oxygen Osmium Oganesson. U Uranium. V Vanadium. X Xenon. Y Yttrium Ytterbium. Z Zinc Zirconium. Membership Become a member Connect with others Supporting individuals Supporting organisations Manage my membership. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Youtube. Discovery date. Discovered by. Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers. Origin of the name. The name is derived from the Greek 'xenos' meaning stranger. Melting point.

Boiling point. Atomic number. Relative atomic mass. Key isotopes. Electron configuration. CAS number. ChemSpider ID. ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database. Electronegativity Pauling scale. Common oxidation states.

Atomic mass. Half life. Mode of decay. Relative supply risk. Crustal abundance ppm. Xenon is a rare, odorless, colourless, tasteless, chemically unreactive gas. It was regarded as completely inert until, in , Neil Bartlett reported synthesis of xenon haxafluoroplatinate. In a gas filled tube xenon emits blue light when excited by electrical discharge. Xenon has relatively little commercial use. It is used in photographic flash lamps, stroboscopic lamps, high-intensitive arc-lamps for motion picture projection and high-pressure arc lamps to product ultraviolet light solar simulators.

Other uses are as general anaesthetic, xenon 'blue' headlights and fog lights are used on some vehicles and are said to be less tiring on the eyes. They illuminate road signs and markings better than conventional lights. Xenon is a trace gas in the Earth's atmosphere, occurring in 1 part in 20 million. The only commercial source of xenon is from industrial liquid-air plants. World production is less than 1 tonne per year, although reserved of xenon gas in the atmosphere amount to 2 billion tonnes.

Inhalation: This gas is inert and is classified as a simple asphyxiant. Inhalation in excessive concentrations can result in dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and death. Death may result from errors in judgment, confusion, or loss of consciousness which prevent self-rescue. Unlike other noble gases, xenon can not be produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, as it takes an intense amount of nuclear fusion energy to produce elements beyond iron in the stars.

However, other cosmic events such as supernova explosions and nova explosions can form xenon by slow neutron capture process s-process in red giants that have entered Asymptotic Gaint Branch AGB. It can also be formed by the radioactive decay of iodine, and spontaneous fission of heavy elements such as thorium, uranium, and plutonium.

Xenon naturally occurs in nine isotopes out of which seven are stable and two are radioactive. Additionally, there are 38 other radioactive isotopes of Xenon. Some radioactive isotopes of xenon, e. At standard temperature and pressure conditions, xenon appears as colourless, odourless, and tasteless gas, with a gas density of around 5. In a discharge tube, xenon, when treated under an electric potential, emits a spectrum of visible light mostly concentrated in the blue region.

At the temperature of Solid and liquid xenon at its triple point temperature. Due to its large atomic volume as a liquid, xenon is highly polarizable, and therefore, provides higher solubility and acts as an excellent solvent. It can dissolve many hydrocarbons, biomolecules, and even water.

Xenon changes its phase from liquid to solid at a temperature of If we increase the pressure to around gigapascals, it can even transform into a metallic state. Solid Xenon has a face cubic centred structure, but it starts to change to hexagonal close-packing as we increase the pressure.

Due to the relatively small width of metallic Xenon, it absorbs red light and emits blue light, which is unusual in metals. For a long time, like other noble gases, xenon was also thought to be chemically non-reactive. So far, more than compounds of xenon have been synthesized. Although, most of them contain fluorine and oxygen. Given the closed-shell configuration of xenon, oxygen and fluorine have the required electronegativity to attract the loosely bounded lone pair of electrons present in its valance shell.

Xenon has the most extensive chemistry in group In most of the compounds, the oxidation state of xenon is similar to its neighbouring element Iodine in the immediately lower oxidation state. There are three known fluorides of Xenon.

These fluoride formations are the starting step for any xenon compound to be formed. It is a colourless solid crystal and sublime at room temperature. It can go under hydrolysis when treated with water. It is also soluble in HF and has a melting point of K. XeF 4 is prepared in the laboratory by heating a mixture of xenon and fluorine in the molar ratio in an enclosed nickel vessel. It is a colourless crystalline solid and can sublimate.