Open AccessAn investigation of the heavy constituents of the atmosphere
Publication year - 1908
Publication title -
proceedings of the royal society of london. series a, containing papers of a mathematical and physical character
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2053-9150
pISSN - 0950-1207
DOI - 10.1098/rspa.1908.0070
Subject(s) - xenon , krypton , atmosphere (unit) , chemistry , oxygen , radiochemistry , atomic physics , analytical chemistry (journal) , environmental chemistry , physics , meteorology , organic chemistry
When Ramsay and Travers first separated krypton and xenon from liquid air residues, they obtained about 12 c. c. of the former gas and 3 c. c. of the latter. On sparking the xenon with oxygen over caustic potash and removing the excess of oxygen with phosphorus, a density of 64 was obtained, which would make this element, on the assumption that it is a monatomic gas, have an atomic weight of 128. This would place it in its proper place in the periodic table—above iodine. Consequently, if any other element of greater density were present in the xenon, the quantity would necessarily be very small. Afterwards Ramsay† obtained 0.87 c. c. of xenon from 191.1 kilogrammes of air, which plainly indicated that any attempt to look for elements in the atmosphere of greater density than xenon would involve the handling of very large quantities of liquid air.