Krypton

Krypton

  • Submitted By: mystery15
  • Date Submitted: 10/22/2015 12:40 PM
  • Category: Science
  • Words: 342
  • Page: 2

I found out a lot of people doesn't know what the element krypton looks like. It turns out that we look at krypton every day, although we may not actually see it. Krypton is one of the gases that makes up the earth's atmosphere. Unfortunately for all of the krypton fans out there, there is very little krypton in the atmosphere. The earth's atmosphere is roughly 0.0001% krypton, or about one part per million.
Krypton is a colorless, odorless gas that rarely reacts with other elements. A container full of krypton gas looks just like a container full of air. It isn't very exciting.
Things become more interesting when an electric current is sent through a container of low pressure krypton. When this is done, krypton lights up in much the same way a fluorescent light bulb does and glows with a smokey-white light. This glowing gas is called a plasma.
Krypton was discovered on May 30, 1898 by Sir William Ramsay, a Scottish chemist, and Morris M. Travers, an English chemist, while studying liquefied air. Small amounts of liquid krypton remained behind after the more volatile components of liquid air had boiled away.
Krypton contains 36 electrons and 36 protons and 84 neutrons.
Because krypton is so rare (and thus expensive), it has limited use. The gas is injected into some incandescent light bulbs, because it extends the life of the tungsten filament that makes those bulbs glow, according to Universal Industrial Gases Inc., a supplier of industrial gases production equipment and related services. Because it is such a heavy gas, krypton is also sealed between the glass of some double-paned windows to help them trap heat. But even for this purpose, the noble gas argon is usually used because it is cheaper, according to Universal Industrial Gases.
Krypton is a colorless, odorless, inert gas. Although it is extremely unreactive krypton can react with the very reactive gas fluorine. krypton is readily separated from liquid air by fractional distillation; it...