Krypton
A noble gas used where argon is not quite inert or not quite dense enough, and in the lamps that once lit stadiums.
Krypton is a heavy noble gas, present in the atmosphere in even smaller proportion than neon, and separated from liquefied air by fractional distillation. Like the other noble gases it is chemically almost inert, though unlike neon it will grudgingly form compounds with fluorine under extreme conditions.
Its practical value comes from being both inert and heavy. A heavier gas conducts heat less readily and diffuses more slowly, which matters in insulation and in sealed lamps where the fill gas must not carry heat away or leak out.
Uses
Krypton fills high-performance windows, where it insulates better than argon in narrow gaps — a real advantage in triple glazing where the space between panes is limited.
It has been used in incandescent and flashlamp designs where it allows a hotter filament and a whiter light, and in some high-intensity lighting. Krypton fluoride excimer lasers are used in photolithography and in laser fusion research. Krypton-85, a fission product, serves as a tracer for leak detection and in thickness gauges.
How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.
How this connects
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is used as
- Lighting — application · allows a hotter filament and a whiter light
is produced by
- Air separation — process · present in air at about one part per million
is found in
- Air — material · one part per million, and separated from air for the same reason and by the same plant
Sources
- Material WorldOur own writing
- Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
- US National Library of Medicine · Mixed — aggregated third-party content, rights retained by depositors
- United States Department of Commerce · US Government work — public information, credit requested