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Neon

Meghan Carter

9-24-11

Neon

Discovery

Neon is the lightest of the noble gases. It was discovered in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris Travers. Also, Ramsay had discovered Argon with Lord Rayleigh. Ramsay and Travers knew that an element had to have been between Helium and Argon on the periodic table. But they were not sure where they were going to look for it. So, they took a piece of Argon, and froze it using liquid air. Once frozen they then put pressure on the element and took samples of the first gas that came off. To see the spectrum of the gas he took high voltage and applied it to the gas in a vacuum tube, where a glow was let off. This was the first time that anyone had seen a glow of neon light. They named the element neon from the Greek word ‘new.’

Information

            Neon has 10 electrons and 10 protons inside the nucleus. It does not reach with other elements under normal conditions, but it has been used in a variety of other things. The most known form of neon is 20-Neon which also makes up 90.5% of the Neon found on earth. The isotope range for Neon is from about 6 to about 24 neutrons. Neon is unstable, and radioactive, but has a very short lives ranging from 3 and a half minutes for 24-Neon to 900 billion trillionths of a second for 16-Neon.

Uses

The most commonly known usage for neon is in neon lighting. Although, not all of the bright light colors glowing of lighted fixtures are contained with neon. The normal color for neon when excited by an electrical charge is orange. But with other colors of “neon” lights the results come because of use with other chemicals in the tube. Liquefied Neon is a common commercial regrigerant.