Discovery date : 1898
Discovered by: Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers
Origin of the name: The name is derived from the Greek 'xenos' meaning stranger.
Allotropes :
~>XENON is a chemical element with symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a colorless, dense, odorless noble gas found in the atmosphere in trace amounts.
| FACT BOX | |||
| Group | 18 | Melting point | −111.75°C, −169.15°F, 161.4 K |
| Period | 5 | Boiling point | −108.099°C, −162.578°F, 165.051 K |
| Block | p | Density (g cm−3) | 0.005366 |
| Atomic number | 54 | Relative atomic mass | 131.293 |
| State at 20°C | Solid | Key isotopes | 132Xe |
| Electron configuration | [Kr] 4d105s25p6 | CAS number | 7440-63-3 |
| ChemSpider ID | 22427 | ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database | |
Xenon was discovered in July 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris Travers at University College London. 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 realised it was yet another member of the ‘inert’ group of gaseous elements as they were then known because of their lack of chemical reactivity. They called the new gas xenon. It was this gas which Neil Bartlett eventually showed was not inert by making a fluorine derivative in 1962. So far more than 100 xenon compounds have been made.