Why is this element important in everyday life?
This element is used in everyday life in ways you might not even imagine. Xenon is used in electron and stroboscopic tubes. Strangely, Xenon has also been used in anesthetics' for animals and humans. The compound Xenon trioxide is used an explosive. Xenon is also one of the many gasses used in bubble chambers.
Where is this element found in nature?
Since the gas Xenon is very scarce it is only found in the air. Even the founders of Xenon, Ramsey and Travers had to work with huge volumes of air to produce just a tiny trace of Xenon, so it turned out that Xenon made up only one part in twenty million of the atmosphere, or .000008% of the air.
What are the properties of the element?
General Characteristics =
Xenon is a colorless, odorless gas. Xenon is a "noble" or "inert" gas, inert meaning a. Exhibiting no chemical activity; totally unreactive b. Exhibiting chemical activity under special or extreme conditions only. Therefore, from the definitions given Xenon is highly unreactive. The word Xenon comes from the Greek word "Xenos" meaning stranger.
Atomic Symbol = Xe
Period Number = 5
Group Number and Family Name =Group 18, Family name -Noble gasses
Atomic Number =54
Atomic Mass =131.30
Density = -5.887 +/ -0.009g/1
Melting Point = -111.9 degrees Celsius
Boiling Point = -111.9 degrees Celsius
Electron Configuration =1s22s22p63s23p64s23d104p65s24d105p6
Shorthand Notation =Xe[Kr] 5s24d105p6
Common Reactions =unreactive
Interesting Information =Found in gasses evolved from certain mineral springs, and is commercially obtained by extraction from liquid air. It's also used to excite ruby lasers, and used in ion engines. Xenon is also found in the Martian atmosphere to the extent of .08 ppm. Natural Xenon is composed of 9 stable isotopes. When a charge of electricity is passed through the gas at a low pressure, it emits a flash of bluish-white light like the color of daylight. Xenon is the most common gas used in strobe lights, and is also found in small amounts in the human body.
Who is Xenon? ?
Once upon a time in a far away land a young ruler was born, Prince Xenon, the heir to his fathers throne. Xenon was born into the noble family of King Flourine and Queen Flourine. The noble family has four other children. Princess' Oxygen and Bromine , and Princes' Nitrogen and Iodine. But since all of these children were orphans and the noble family took them in as their own, Xenon the first born blood son was next in line to rule the vast kingdom. The noble family was very wealthy and because they had seen all of the horrible things that could happen to the less fortunate they were kind enough to lower the taxes. About twenty years later the King was sent away to fight the war between his kingdom and his arch enemy Thorine' s kingdom. King Florine was gone no longer than a week when the noble family received a telegram stating that the king had been killed in battle. The tragedy had left the Queen alone with five children. As the years passed the older children of their own and moved on and became very successful rulers of their own kingdoms. Queen Chlorine came down with Emphysema and relinquished the throne to Prince Xenon. Prince Xenon was a very greedy man. Xenon felt that he needed more and more money to run hies kingdom. Therefore Xenon raised the taxes, due to this the majority of Xenon's loyal subjects were sent to debtors prison. One day the beautiful Princess Neon came along and had a plan to marry Prince Xenon and change his way of ruling. She was successful in one of the two ways, that was marrying him. The prince refused to listen to his wise wife, and his people overthrew the prince and voted that Princess Neon should be the new ruler. Prince Xenon was then sent away to a far away land and never heard from again. Now Princess Neon rules the beautiful and vast kingdom.
