Characteristics of the Element Neon
Neon was discovered in 1898 by British chemists Sir William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers as a component of the most volatile fraction of liquefied crude argon obtained from air. Upon applying an electric current to it, the chemists found that it had an orange glow, and they decided that it was not argon, but rather a new element altogether.
Neon is not a very common element, but the places it is most abundant in are the earth's atmosphere, and trapped within rocks in the earth's crust. The place where it is most abundant, however, is the throughout the cosmos. In the earth's atmosphere, neon only comprises 0.0018 percent of the volume. On the earth, neon is always present as a gas.
There are many physical properties of neon, such as the fact that it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Also, neon is lighter than air. With a density of density 0.89990 g/liter. The freezing point of neon is -248.67° C, and the boiling point of neon is -246.048° C, which is even lower than the boiling point of nitrogen (-195.8°C). When under low pressure, neon emits a bright orange-red glow if a small electric current is passed through it. The electron configuration of neon is 1s22s22p6. The chemical properties of neon include the fact that it is not reactive because it has a full outer shell, and therefore cannot gain or lose any electrons. Because of this, neon belongs to a group of elements called "noble gases." These are all gases which have a full outer shell and cannot react in nature. The period of neon is 2, and the group is 18.
Neon has an atomic number of 10, and a mass of 20.180. Neon has three stable isotopes: neon 20, 21, and 22. These three isotopes comprise 90.92 percent of natural neon, 0.26 percent of natural neon, and 8.82 percent of natural neon, respectively. There are five other isotopes of neon, and they are all radioactive. None of these five isotopes occur in nature.
There is only one common use for neon, and that is in electric and fluorescent lights to produce a bright orange-red glow.
Around 1902, when luminol was first synthesized, scientists noticed that it exhibited a blue glow in the presence of other compounds. Later on, it was found that the luminol reaction occurred in the presence of blood. Its use in crime scenes was first implemented by German forensic scientist Walter Specht in 1937. When the luminol solution is sprayed, the iron present in hemoglobin in blood catalyzes the reaction to produce a blue glow.
In 1895, Professor Wilhelm C. Roentgen, a German physicist, was working with a cathode ray tube, much like our fluorescent light bulb. The tube consisted of positive and negative electrodes encapsulated in a glass envelope. On November 8, 1895, Roentgen was conducting experiments in his lab on the effects of cathode rays. He evacuated all the air from the tube and passed a high electric voltage through it after filling it with a special gas. When he did this, the tube began to give off a fluorescent glow. Roentgen then shielded the tube with heavy black paper and discovered a green colored fluorescent light could be seen coming from a screen located a few feet away from the tube.
Strontium was discovered by Adair Crawford, an Irish chemist, in 1790 while studying the mineral witherite (BaCO3). When he mixed witherite with hydrochloric acid (HCl), he did not get the results he expected. He assumed that his sample of witherite was contaminated with an unknown mineral, a mineral he named strontianite (SrCO3). Strontium was first isolated by Sir Humphry Davy, an English chemist, in 1808 through the electrolysis of a mixture of strontium chloride (SrCl2) and mercuric oxide (HgO). Strontium reacts vigorously with water and quickly tarnishes in air, so it must be stored out of contact with air and water. Due to its extreme reactivity to air, this element always naturally occurs combined with other elements and compounds. Strontium is very
Just like many other scientific discoveries, the discovery and isolation of lithium was a group effort. In 1817, a Swedish scientist by the name of Johan Arfwedson was the first person to discover Lithium. While doing an analysis on the mineral petalite in 1817, Arfwedson found this soft, silver-white element. Jons Jakob Berzelius, another Swedish chemist, named the element the Greek name “lithos.” Later on, the element’s name was then changed to lithium. Although lithium had finally been discovered, none of the aforementioned scientists were able to isolate pure lithium without it being attached to its salts. It was not until 1821 when two English chemists by the names of Sir Humphrey Davy and William Thomas Brande isolated lithium by electrolyzing lithium oxide (LiO2).
Lithium has an atomic number of 3, and an atomic weight of 6.94. In general, lithium is more stable than hydrogen, and slightly less stable than nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen. When looking at chemical ion properties, it is useful to consider three main characteristics: the size, or radius, of the ion, the charge, and the ion's electron affinity. Lithium has a similar charge to radius ratio to that of magnesium, which is in group IIA of the periodic table, and so chemists say that the two elements are "chemically similar.
One of the first inventions but more so of a discovery was the idea of nuclear fusion. It was discovered by a German scientist in february of 1939. This led to the invention of the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was only used twice both times by the U.S. near the end of the war first on Hiroshima then on Nagasaki(Atomic Bomb).
Gallium is a metal that was discovered in 1875 by Paul Emile Lecoq De Boisbaudren and is a “byproduct of the manufacture of aluminum” (“Gallium.” Web). Gallium has a low melting point of 29.76°c which is just slightly above room temperature. But even with an unusually low melting temperature, gallium has a very high boiling point of 2204°c. “Gallium expands by 3.1% when it solidifies” (“Gallium.” Avalon). Gallium was an element that was predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev and it “Validated his periodic table of elements” (“Gallium.” Avalon). When in solid form, Gallium has a Silver and reflective appearance.
An atom, by definition, is the smallest part of any substance. The atom has three main components that make it up: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and neutrons are within the nucleus in the center of the atom. The electrons revolve around the nucleus in many orbitals. These orbitals consist of many different shapes, including circular, spiral, and many others. Protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged. Protons and electrons both have charge of equal magnitude (i.e. 1.602x10-19 coulombs). Neutrons have a neutral charge, and they, along with protons, are the majority of mass in an atom. Electron mass, though, is negligible. When an atom has a neutral charge, it is stable.
Mr. Cronstedt discovered nickel in a mineral called niccolite. He originally planned to extract copper from this new mineral but got none at all. This is why nickel, at first, was called "false copper". Instead, Cronstedt got a silvery-white metal, which was eventually used for other things.
While all atoms of the same element have the same number of protons, it is possible for atoms of one element to have different numbers of neutrons. Atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes . For example, all atoms of the element carbon have 6 protons, but while most carbon atoms have 6 neutrons, some have 7 or 8. Isotopes are named by giving the name of the element followed by the sum of the neutrons and protons in the isotope's nucl...
It was discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy in England, in 1807. Sir Davy was able to isolate potassium using electrolysis. Potassium was the first metal isolated by this procedure. Today, it is still not found free in nature. It is obtained by electrolysis of chloride or hydroxide.
From the Greek word "lithos" meaning "stone", it was so named due to the fact that it was discovered from a mineral source; whereas the other two common Group 1 elements, Sodium and Potassium, were found in plant sources. Its symbol, Li, was taken directly from its name. Soon after stumbling upon Lithium, Arfvedson also found traces of the metal in the minerals Spodumene and Lepidolite. In 1818, C.G. Gmelin discovered that Lithium salts color flames a bright red. Neither, Gmelin or Arfvedson, however, were able to isolate the element itself from the Lithium salts. They both tried to reduce the oxide by heating it with Iron or Carbon, but neither met with the success of W.T. Brande and Sir Humphrey Davy. They managed to perform the first isolation of elemental Lithium by the electrolysis of Lithium oxide. Electrolysis is a chemical reaction, which is brought about by the passage of current from an external energy source such as a battery. In 1855, the scientists Bunsen and Mattiessen isolated larger quantities of the metal by electrolysis of Lithium chloride.
The background of fluorescent lighting started back in the 1927 when Frederick Meyers, Hans, Spanner and Edmund Germer, (who at the time were employees of a German firm located in Berlin), patented a fluorescent lamp (Potash 1). This was thought to be one of the best ideas at that time because of the way these were made; unlike others, fluorescent bulbs are coated on the inside to increase efficiency. When they were first invented, beryllium (a gray-white metallic element that is light, hard, brittle, and resists corrosion) was used as the coating for the bulbs (Parker 58), however beryllium turned out to be toxic and was replaced with safer fluorescent chemicals.
Brand was obsessed with finding the Philosopher’s Stone; this stone reputedly could change metals into gold. With his discovery, this made Brand the first known discoverer of an element. In 1669, he isolated human urine and distilled it which resulted in a white and waxy material. Brand named this material phosphorus (light bearer) because it glowed in the dark. This discovery was kept a secret until 1680 when an English chemist Robert Boyle discovered phosphorus independently. Boyle’s definition of this element was simply “a substance that cannot be broken down into a simpler substance by a chemical reaction”. This definition of the element lasted for three centuries until the discovery of subatomic
Though it was one of the three first elements (together with helium and hydrogen) to be synthesized in the Big Bang, lithium, together with beryllium and boron are markedly less abundant than other nearby elements. This is a result of the low temperature necessary to destroy lithium, and a lack of common processes to produce it.[34]