Krypton's Background Information
Krypton's symbol on the periodic table is Kr and its name derives from the Greek word "kryptos" meaning hidden. Krypton was discovered by Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers. When they discovered the element Argon, they figured other elements could be found in Argon. After going through the process of liquefying and evaporating Argon, Krypton remained and was discovered on May 30th, 1898.
Structure of Krypton
Atomic Number: The atomic number of Krypton is 36.
Atomic Mass: The atomic mass of Krypton is 83.798
Number of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons: Krypton has 36 protons, 36 electrons and 48 neutrons.
Krypton's Stable Isotopes: Kryptons stable isotopes are Kr-78, Kr-80, Kr-82, Kr-83, Kr-84, and Kr-86.
Natural sources of Krypton
Krypton is one of the rarest gases in Earth's atmosphere. Krypton is 0.000114% part of the Earth's atmosphere in volume. It is extracted by distillation of air that has been cooled until it is a liquid.
Major Uses of Krypton
Krypton is used as a gas for energy saving fluorescent lights. Krypton, like the other noble gases in it's group, is not very reactive, but we do know that it reacts with fluoride to form chemical compounds such as krypton fluoride which is used in lasers. Radioactive krypton was used in the Cold War to figure out Soviet Nuclear Production. Since Krypton gas results from all nuclear reactions, Russian share of nuclear production was deduced by taking the total amount of Krypton in the air and then subtracting the amount of Krypton in the air that came from Western reactors to arrive at the amount of Krypton that came from Russian reactors.
Krypton Facts
For every krypton atom, there are about 8,200 argon atoms, 184,000 oxygen molecules and 685,000 nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere.
Krypton-fluorine lasers produce pulses with 500 times the power of the entire U.S. electrical grid.
Citations
https://www.hobart.k12.in.us/ksms/PeriodicTable/krypton.htm
http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/36/krypton
http://www.chemicool.com/elements/krypton.html
education.jlab.org/glossary/abund_atmos.html
http://www.webnode.me/krypton-fluoride-laser.html
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/KrTube.jpg/220px-KrTube.jpg
http://wikivisually.com/wiki/William_Ramsay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ramsay
https://sdgmag.com/features/neon-21st-century
Credits:
Created with images by fdecomite - "Krypton"