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How Did William Travers Discovered Neon

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William Ramsey and Morris William Travers discovered Neon in June of 1898. They noticed a pattern of the elements in the periodic table and were sure there were more out there, so they decided to repeat a modified version of the experiment used to discover Krypton, which they also discovered earlier that year. (Emsley, 2001; Heiserman, 1992) To perform this experiment, solid Argon was surrounded by liquid air and it evaporated due to the low pressure they put on it. Ramsey and Travers captured the first gas that came off of the solid Argon. As soon as possible this new gas was put into their atomic spectrometer and they were amazed with the results. It began to glow a vivid orange-red color! (Heiserman, 1992) a “As Travers wrote, ‘the blaze …show more content…

After already discovering Neon, Argon, and Krypton from liquid air, they were encouraged and curious about what other noble gases and elements were undiscovered. They were gifted a new liquid-air machine from industrialist Lugwig Mond and began using it to retrieve more Krypton. During this process and through repeated fractional distillations a heavier gas became known: Xenon. After placing this new gas in a vacuum tube, it began releasing a gentle blue light. Ramsey and Travers knew they had discovered yet another noble gas! Because it was so hard to find, they named it Xenon which is Greek for “stranger.” (Emsley, 2001) The only commercial source of Xenon is “industrial liquid-air plants.” The world’s production of Xenon is less than 1 tonne, but there are reserves of Xenon gas in the atmosphere that contain 2 billion tonnes! (Emsley, 2001) When an electric current pulses through Xenon, like most of the noble gases, it glows. Xenon has a distinctive baby blue light which is in the “safe” ultraviolet spectrum. (Emsley, 2001) Xenon-129 is found in stony metorites which are thought to come from radioactive decay of iodine-129 which has a half-life (how long it takes for 1 half of the radioactive isotope to decay) of 17 million years. There is a minute trace of Xenon in human blood. “Xenon can have no biological role, and the gas is harmless although it could …show more content…

“Radioactive Krypton was used during the Cold War to estimate Soviet nuclear production.” (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2023) One of Krypton’s most known functions is in lighting. As previously stated, Krypton is used in flash lamps or tubes for high-speed photography because of its ability to illuminate a bright white light when triggered, therefore giving a clear, crisp image of the subject. (Emsley, 2001) When Krypton operates under a low pressure under electrical currents, it makes a variation in colors, in this case a blueish white. Like flash and high-speed photography, the crisp white of Krypton is thoroughly sought after in cinematography and videography communities because it is a lovely illuminating component to high quality

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