Noble Gas Xenon in Researches, Medicine and Industry

By: Vasilko Bykov Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Xenon gas is present in atmosphere, but unfortunately in a very low amounts. It is possible to say that average room have few cubic centimetres of this gas. Xenon was discovered by studying of evaporation of liquid gases carried by 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 in cry vessel. This liquid was krypton gas, but after evaporation a very tiny amount of other gas was left. This gas was named as xenon. 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.

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 production 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 photography.

Another interesting application of xenon gas was discovered recently in completely new research field. As we all know, xenon atoms have hydrophobic properties and easily can bind with hydrophobic parts of protein molecules. According last researches this binding can take place only at pressures of more than 70 psi. The structure of xenon atom is very electron rich and therefore these atoms can used as heavy atom derivatives for structure solutions. 57 protein structures were solved with this techniques. Coordinates for all these structures are submitted into RCSB data bank and everybody can look through these beautiful results. For convenience we prepare all pictures (normal and stereo view) of all xenon binding centres available in protein data bank now.

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

Recent studies shows that in high concentrations xenon can act as anaestheticby inhibiting of membrane calcium pumps. Last few decades xenon considered as potential candidate for surgery as an anaesthetic agent due to significant reduction of production price with consequent anaesthetic price of about 1300 GBP per hour of deep anaesthesia.

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About The Author: You can read more about physical and chemical properties of inert gas xenon on the author website. For your knowledges you can read useful information about xenon binding sites in proteins: 1o75 structure written by author.