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WHO DISCOVERED KRYPTON?

Sir William Ramsay

WHAT IS/ARE THE USES OF KRYPTON


The high cost of obtaining krypton from the air has limited its practical
applications. Krypton is used in some types of photographic flashes used in
high speed photography. Some fluorescent light bulbs are filled with a
mixture of krypton and argon gases. Krypton gas is also combined with other
gases to make luminous signs that glow with a greenish-yellow light. In 1960,
the length of the meter was defined in terms of the orange-red spectral line
of krypton-86, an isotope of krypton.
FACTS ABOUT KRYPTON

Krypton (Kr) has an atomic number of thirty-six. This element plays an


important role in the international standard of measuring a meter and
in laser technology.
Krypton was discovered by Sir William Ramsay in 1898 and his student
Morris Travers.
Ramsay and Travers were studying the residue of boiled liquid air.
They found krypton to be left over after oxygen, nitrogen, argon,
helium, and water had been removed from the air.
Xenon was discovered by this same process only a few weeks later.
Krypton is odorless and colorless.
It is found in the Earth's atmosphere at one part per million.
The atmosphere of Mars has only around .3 parts per million.
Krypton is a member of the noble gases.
Its key uses were for photography and lighting.
Krypton is particularly useful in gas lasers due to its high light emitting
in plasma.
The definition of a meter was formalized in 1960 using krypton.
This definition states that a meter is a wavelength of the kryption-86
isotope.
This wavelength is 605.78 nanometers long.
The krypton definition changed again in 1983.
There are six stable isotopes of krypton that occur in nature.
As many as thirty unstable isotopes have been discovered.
Concentrations of Kr-85 are 30% higher at the North Pole than they are
at the South Pole.
This is due to convective mixing.
Krypton is found in the Earth's atmosphere at about one part per
million.
The process of fractional distillation allows krypton to be isolated from
liquid air.
As a noble gas, the Earth has kept all of its original supply of krypton.
Krypton is used as an intense white light source for flash photography
due to numerous emission lines.
Krypton-83 has medical uses in MRI technology.
Krypton is believed to be a non-toxic asphyxia-inducing agent because
it displaces breathable air.

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