Element 54 · Noble Gas
Xenon
Xenon — the noble gas of high-end car headlights, anaesthesia, and ion thrusters.
Element Facts
SYMBOL
Xe
ATOMIC NO.
54
ATOMIC WEIGHT
131.293
CATEGORY
Noble Gas
PERIOD
Period 5
GROUP
Group 18
Background
Xenon was discovered in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris Travers from fractional distillation of liquid air, shortly after krypton. Named from the Greek for “stranger”. In the 1950s it found its first widespread commercial use in xenon flash lamps for photography (replacing slower flashbulbs) and in cinema projectors and searchlights, where its intense white light closely mimics daylight.
Industrial Uses
Xenon is used in HID headlights for premium vehicles (now largely supplanted by LED), plasma display panels, high-pressure short-arc lamps for cinema and scientific instruments, CT scanner X-ray tubes, and as a general anaesthetic (expensive but provides excellent recovery with no toxicity). Xenon ion propulsion is used in satellite and deep-space spacecraft thrusters, including the Dawn and Hayabusa missions.
Scrap Viability
Why QuickStop Metals doesn’t buy Xenon:
Xenon is a noble gas — chemically inert, monatomic, and existing only as a gas under normal conditions. There is no metal content and no scrap trade.
What It's Worth
Xenon is the most expensive of the commonly produced noble gases, ranging from approximately £800–4,000 per cubic metre due to its extremely low concentration in air (87 parts per billion). Not a scrap commodity.