Ramsay separation

Gr. neos, new) Discovered by Ramsay and Travers in 1898. Neon is a rare gaseous element present in the atmosphere to the extent of 1 part in 65,000 of air. It is obtained by liquefaction of air and separated from the other gases by fractional dishhation. 

With the aid of a new liquid-air machine, generously provided by Dr. Ludwig Mond, Professor Ramsay and Dr. Travers prepared larger quantities of krypton and neon, and by repeated fractionation of krypton, a still heavier gas was separated from it, which they named xenon, the stranger (15). It was discovered on July 12, 1898. Vacuum tubes containing it show forth a beautiful blue glow. 

Ramsay, O, B, and Rocke, A. J. Kekule s dreams. Separating the fiction from the fact. Chem. Britain 20, 1093-1094 (1984). 

Ramsay, O. Bertrand, and A. J. Rocke. "Kekule s Dreams Separating the Fiction from the Fact." Chemistry in Britain 20 (1984) 1093-94. 

Ramsay and Kallus [11], as well as other anthors [12,13], pointed out that the distribution of the zeolite within the snp-port, that is, the zeolite preferentially deposited inside the porous structure of the support or the zeolitic material constituting a thin layer on top of the porous support, apart from influencing the mechanical strength and defect likelihood of the resulting membrane, may also cause differences in its gas separation performance. 

Ramsay JDF, Kallus S. Recent Advances in Gas Separation by Microporous Ceramic Membranes. Amsterdam, the Netherlands Elsevier Science BV, 2000. 

Ramsay, B.A., Ramsay, J., Berger, E. et ai. (1992) Separation of poly-beta-hydroxyalkanoic acid from microbial biomass. US Patent 5110980. 

The discovery of neon promptly followed. Ramsay and Travers selected light fractions formed on the distillation of air and discovered a new inert gas in one of them. Ramsay later recollected that the name neon (from the Greek neOs for new ) had been proposed hy Ramsay s twelve-year-old son. In this case the experiment was performed hy Travers alone since Ramsay was away. It was on the 7th of June. Then a whole week was required to confirm the results, obtain greater amounts of neon, and determine its density. Neon, as had been expected, turned out to be an intermediate between helium and argon although it had not yet been isolated as a pure gas. The problem of complete separation of neon and argon was solved later. 

Still another inert gas was to be discovered by Ramsay and Travers. The scientists, however, did not feel as certain as in the case of neon. One day in July, 1898, the colleagues were busy with distilling liquid air and separating it into fractions. By midnight they collected more than 50 fractions... 

Charles James, Figure 17.12, was bom in 1880 at Earls Barton near Northampton, England and died in 1928 in New Hampshire, USA. He studied at University College, London, under Sir William Ramsay and graduated from the Institute of Chemistry in 1904. He moved to USA and the University of New Hampshire in 1906. There he developed new fractional crystallization techniques for separating rare earth elements. He was the first to separate large amounts of lutetium from ytterbium. 

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