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Chemistry of Argon (Z=18)

  • Page ID
    584
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    Argon is it is colorless, tasteless and odorless noble gas that is located in Group 18 on the Periodic Table. It was discovered by Henry Cavendish in 1785 and was named Argon, which is derived from the Greek word "argos" meaning inactive. Cavendish formed oxides of nitrogen by passing electric currents through air, then dissolved them in water to get nitric acid, but was unable to get all of the air to react. He suspected that there was a then unidentified gas component of air; Ramsay and Rayleigh went on to isolate this component in 1894, and the new found element was thus named Argon.

    Contributors and Attributions

    • Katherine Cubbon (UCD)

    Stephen R. Marsden


    Chemistry of Argon (Z=18) is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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