The Century Progress In Xenon Gas Industrial Applications

Xenon gas is present in atmospheric air, but unfortunately in a very low amounts. It is possible to say that average room have only few ml of this gas. Xenon was discovered by studying of evaporation of liquid gases carried by William Ramsay and Morris Travers. After evaporation of liquid atmospheric gas, which contains helium, hydrogen, neon, oxygen, nitrogen and argon a very small amount of liquid remaining was left. This liquid was krypton gas, but after evaporation a very tiny amount of other gas was left. This gas was named as xenon from a Greek word meaning "strange one" or "stranger". This gas emitted very unusual white light with full spectrum, from orange to violet. This light emittance activated by electrical discharge can be explained by very big electron cloud of xenon, which contains 54 electrons.

Very wide spectrum of xenon gas emittance, from infra-red to ultraviolet, activated by electrical discharge in demand in many industrial applications. Xenon gas is used for manufacturing of high pressure light bulbs. The high pressure lamps are used for production of extremely intensive full spectrum light, from infra-red to ultraviolet. This light is used in orthochromatic cinematography.

Another interesting application of xenon gas was discovered recently. Xenon atoms can be very hydrophobic and easily can bind with hydrophobic moieties of protein molecules. This binding can take place only at pressures of more than 5 atmospheres (70 psi). The structure of xenon atom is very electron rich and therefore these atoms can used as heavy atom derivatives for structure solutions. Currently more than 50 structures were solved with this techniques. Coordinates for all these structures are submitted into protein data bank and everybody can look through these beautiful results. For convenience we prepare all pictures (normal and stereo view) of all xenon binding sites available in PDB data bank now.

Xenon atoms significantly interact with x-ray. As an inert gas, xenon is absolutely harmless for living organisms and therefore this gas can be used in x-ray diagnostic medicine.

Recent studies shows that in high concentrations xenon can act as anaesthetic by inhibiting of membrane calcium pumps with consequent inhibition of spinal dorsal horn neurons. Recently xenon became potential candidate for surgery as an anaesthetic agent due to significant reduction of production price with consequent anaesthetic price of about 2000 USD per hour of deep anaesthesia.