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Xe
Mainly in the atmosphere, with a share of about 0.09 ppm. The oceans, some rocks, and natural gas sources also contain trace quantities of xenon.
- 111.7 °C
- 108 °C
Colorless, inert like all noble gases, but together with radon the most reactive element of that group. It even reacts directly with fluorine, but most xenon compounds are unstable or occur only under unusual conditions.
Air separation
Xenon is needed for manufacturing processes in the electronics industry and as a propellant for ion thrusters. The noble gas also serves as an inhalation anesthetic.
Noble gases are rare — and that’s especially true for xenon. In fact, it is the rarest stable element found on Earth.
In 1895, William Ramsay first isolated helium and realized that, according to the periodic system, other noble gases must also exist. However, he didn’t discover xenon until he and Morris William Travers took a closer look at newly discovered krypton. Through fractional distillation, they managed to isolate yet another gas. Since the discovery had “challenged” them, so to speak, the two researchers named the new element after the Ancient Greek word xenos, meaning “foreign” or “strange.”
Today, xenon is extracted from air using specialized gas separation units. Due to its extremely low concentration in the atmosphere, this process is only economically viable at large-scale facilities. For example, a single air separation unit producing 24,000 kilograms of oxygen per hour would, in theory, yield only about one kilogram of xenon per day. In modern processes, xenon is extracted from liquid oxygen during air separation. In a complex procedure involving a dedicated separation unit, it takes around 24,000 kilograms of liquid oxygen to recover just 9.4 kilograms of xenon per day.
Due to its high production cost, xenon is rarely used—even in medicine—despite being one of the most well-tolerated and environmentally friendly anesthetic gases. Xenon also plays an “out-of-this-world” role in space research, where it serves as a propellant in ion thrusters used to keep satellites in their desired orbits.
Kr
Only 1,14 ppm mass fraction in the Earth’s atmosphere
- 152 °C
- 157.36 °C
Very inert, thermodynamically unstable
Air separation
The noble gas krypton is difficult to extract from air, making it quite expensive. As a result, it is now primarily used as an insulating gas in double-glazed windows, where it offers significantly better thermal insulation than the more affordable argon. Krypton is also used as a fill gas in Geiger counters for detecting radioactive radiation. Other applications include krypton-based gas mixtures used in specialized lasers — for example, in eye surgery or the production of complex semiconductor components.
Krypton is one of the rarest elements on Earth, with most of it found in the atmosphere. However, its abundance in the universe is significantly higher. Scientists believe that the matter between stars — which generates magnetic fields and radiation in interstellar space — may be particularly rich in krypton.
Krypton played a unique role in the definition of the meter. Originally, the meter was defined by the International Prototype Meter — a platinum bar whose length represented one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. As more precise measurement methods were developed, the official length of the meter was revised several times — and with it, its definition.
In the early 20th century, the idea emerged to define the meter using the wavelengths of spectral lines. In the early 1950s, scientists developed the krypton-86 discharge lamp, which emitted light at a highly stable and reproducible wavelength. Based on this new method, the meter was redefined in 1960. The current definition, still in use today, was established in 1983 and is based on the distance light travels in a vacuum within a given time.
Ne
- 246 °C
- 248.59 °C
Colorless, odorless gas, extremely inert, low solubility in water, somewhat lighter than air
Air separation
The best known application area for the noble gas neon is the famous neon tubes – even if the present and the future belong to the LED. That’s why neon’s most important application today is excimer lasers, which are mainly used to manufacture semiconductors and display screens. Moreover, neon is used in the form of a mixture in helium-neon lasers – to calibrate spectrometers, for example.
Neon, whose name is based on the ancient Greek word for “new,” was discovered by William Ramsay and Morris William Travers in 1898. The two chemists first heated minerals and parts of meteorites to study the gases generated as a result – but found only the previously known noble gases helium and argon.
It was only later while experimenting with raw argon isolated from liquefied air that they ultimately encountered the as yet unknown neon. In 1910, Georges Claude developed the first practical application of neon – the neon lamp: electric voltage excited the noble gas within its glass body, thereby causing it to emit light.
In the Earth’s atmosphere, neon is relatively rare – its concentration is just 18.2 ppm. It has also been found in granite and basalt as well as in diamonds. Scientists suspect that much of the Earth’s neon has escaped the atmosphere since the creation of the planet. It is one of the most commonly occurring elements in the universe, along with hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen.
Only 18,2 ppm mass fraction in the Earth’s atmosphere
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