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Xenon: recent developments
Author(s) -
Dingley J.,
IvanovaStoilova T. M.,
Grundler S.,
Wall T.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2044.1999.00807.x
Subject(s) - xenon , nitrous oxide , inert gas , atmosphere (unit) , medicine , radiochemistry , anesthesia , physics , thermodynamics , nuclear physics , chemistry , materials science , composite material
Xenon is the Greek word for stranger. The gas was discovered by Ramsay and Travers in 1898 in the residue left after evaporating liquid air components. It was originally labelled, with others, an inert gas but after discovery of some compounds this group was renamed the noble gases in 1962. It is the heaviest stable gas in this group and the only one which is anaesthetic under normobaric conditions [1]. Xenon constitutes 0.87% of the atmosphere, which is estimated to contain around 400 million tonnes. An average room contains about 4 ml. Based on the assumption that the relative distribution of all elements on all planets in the solar system is roughly the same, the earth’s atmosphere contains about 2000 times less than expected. It is manufactured by fractional distillation of air, costing around 2000 times as much as nitrous oxide. Where possible it is recycled, e.g. from old computer displays. It is used in lasers, high-intensity lamps, flash bulbs, space applications, X-ray tubes and medicine (imaging, anaesthesia). As an anaesthetic it exhibits many of the features of the ideal agent. Xenon has been used for routine clinical anaesthesia in Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and