xenon

Also known as Xe, element 54, 54Xe

Xenon is a chemical element; it has symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the formation of xenon hexafluoroplatinate, the first noble gas compound to be synthesized.

OverviewAI-generated

Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. Its standard chemical formula is Xe, and its IUPAC name is xenon. The element has a mass of 131.293 and a weight of 131.29. It possesses a charge of 0 and an electronegativity of 2.6.

The electron configuration of xenon is listed as 1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 4s² 3d¹⁰ 4p⁶ 5s² 4d¹⁰ 5p⁶, or alternatively as [Kr] 5s² 4d¹⁰ 5p⁶. Its ionization energy is 1170.4, and its standard molar entropy is 169.6. The canonical SMILES representation is [Xe], and its InChIKey is FHNFHKCVQCLJFQ-UHFFFAOYSA-N. The Unicode character for xenon is 氙.

Xenon was discovered on 1898-07-12. It has zero hydrogen bond donors and acceptors, with a topological polar surface area of 0. PubMed references 14,242 entries for xenon, and it is referenced by 3,246 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 25 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, PubMed, PubChem, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Key facts

Drug.container_only: yes
Drug.DailyMedID: Xenon
Drug.ATC_prefix: V04
Drug.ATC_suffix: CX12
Drug.legal_US: Rx-only
Drug.CAS_number: 7440-63-3
Drug.PubChem: 23991
Drug.DrugBank: DB13453
Drug.ChEBI: 49956
Drug.ChEMBL: 1236802
Drug.UNII: 3H3U766W84
Drug.StdInChI: 1S/Xe
Drug.StdInChIKey: FHNFHKCVQCLJFQ-UHFFFAOYSA-N
Drug.SMILES: [Xe]

via Wikipedia infobox

Chemical data

Formula: Xe
Molecular weight: 131.29 g/mol
IUPAC name: xenon
SMILES: [Xe]
InChIKey: FHNFHKCVQCLJFQ-UHFFFAOYSA-N
Polar surface area: 0 Å²
H-bond donors: 0
H-bond acceptors: 0
Formal charge: 0

via PubChem

Research

14,242 papers

Xenon anesthesia and beyond: pros and cons.Minerva anestesiologica · 2019
Xenon.International anesthesiology clinics · 2015
Neuroprotective Properties of Xenon.Molecular neurobiology · 2020
Xenon and Argon as Neuroprotective Treatments for Perinatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury: A Preclinical Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Anesthesia and analgesia · 2025
Xenon anaesthesia.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2000

via PubMed

~39 min read

Encyclopedic overview

34 sections

Contents

History
Characteristics
Occurrence and production
The missing Xe problem
Commercial
Solar System
Stellar
Nuclear fission
Isotopes
Nuclear spin
From fission
Cosmic processes
Compounds
Halides
Oxides and oxohalides
Other compounds
Clathrates and excimers
Applications
Illumination and optics
Gas-discharge lamps
Lasers
Medical
Anesthesia
Neuroprotectant
Sports doping and mountaineering
Imaging
Surgery
NMR spectroscopy
Other
Precautions
See also
Notes
References
External links

Xenon is used in flash lamps and arc lamps, and as a general anesthetic. The first excimer laser design used a xenon dimer molecule (Xe2) as the lasing medium, and the earliest laser designs used xenon flash lamps as pumps. Xenon is also used to search for hypothetical weakly interacting massive particles and as a propellant for ion thrusters in spacecraft.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “xenon” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.