Corralling xenon gas out of waste streamsFrom space propulsion to lighting to surgical anesthesia, t
Corralling xenon gas out of waste streams
From space propulsion to lighting to surgical anesthesia, the applications and needs for xenon gas are growing. And the good news is that researchers are advancing the science to more easily remove xenon from waste streams and collect the low amounts of it found in the atmosphere.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are at the forefront of research developing porous nanoscale materials to capture xenon. They report in the journal Chem this month, that inexpensive materials called metal-organic frameworks have been very successful in separating the gas in a way that may make it far less expensive than existing means of producing it.
Currently, industry uses a common but expensive process called cryogenic distillation to separate xenon from other gases or the atmosphere. In that costly process, a lot of energy is used to chill entire gas streams down to far below freezing in order to concentrate the xenon.
