Why is helium completely unreactive

Helium has a full outer shell of two s electrons. The other gases have full outer shells of two s and six p electrons. Compounds have been formed with Rn, Xe, Kr, and Ar. What does the name mean? What does krypton react with? What does xenon react with? List present-day uses for each of the noble gases. Review What elements comprise the noble elements? What state are they in at room temperature? Why is helium non-reactive? Why were the other noble gases believed to be non-reactive?

More than 40, subscribers can't be wrong. This is clearly exotic work. Tibi is a science journalist and co-founder of ZME Science. He writes mainly about emerging tech, physics, climate, and space. In his spare time, Tibi likes to make weird music on his computer and groom felines. Home Science Chemistry. Helium can, in fact, react with other elements to form a stable compound. Better re-write those textbooks Not so noble after all. February 8, Reading Time: 4 mins read.

Crystal structure of Na2He, resembling a three-dimensional checkerboard. Krypton which is used commercially is extracted from liquid air by fractional distillation. Krypton was discovered in by Sir William Ramsay and his assistant, Morris Travers, in a sample of argon gas extracted from the atmosphere.

The name "krypton" is derived from the Greek word kryptos , meaning "hidden" which has nothing to do with the home planet of Superman. Krypton is used in some "neon" lights, producing a violet color when electricity is passed through it. Radioactive kyrypton is produced in nuclear reactors and nuclear processing plants; monitoring krypton in the atmosphere allowed the United States to monitor how much nuclear material the Soviet Union was using. Xenon is a colorless, odorless, unreactive gas which liquefies at It is found in the Earth's crust at a concentration of 2 ppt, making it the 83rd most abundant element; it is found in the atmosphere at a concentration of 90 ppb by volume.

Xenon which is used commercially is extracted from liquid air by fractional distillation. Xenon was also discovered by Ramsay and Travers in The name is derived from the Greek word for "stranger," xenos.

Xenon lights glow with a blue light, and also emits some low-frequency ultraviolet light. Xenon lights are used in tanning beds, biocidal lamps used in food preparation, car headlights, flash lighting on cameras, strobe lights used in high-speed photography, and has been tested for use in space travel in ion-propulsion engines such as the experimental NASA spacecraft Deep Space 1.

Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas which liquefies at It is found in the Earth's crust in only trace amounts, and is one of the ten least abundant elements; it is found in the atmosphere at a concentration of 10 -9 ppt by volume. Radon was discovered in by Friederich Ernst Dorn while investigating "radium emanation" first observed by Marie and Pierre Curie , a gas found in sealed vessels of radium. The name is a variation on the name of the element radium.

It is produced in the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium, which in a series of steps decay into radium, which then undergoes alpha-decay to produce radon. The table summarises the electronic configurations of elements in groups 1, 7 and 0.

You should see that:. The main properties of the noble gases include:. Many uses of the noble gases are linked to one or more of these properties. Helium is used as a lifting gas in party balloons and airships. Helium is:.