How is xenon purified

The purification method is based on the separation due to the different boiling points of xenon and krypton. The purified xenon can exit the distillation system at the bottom. Here, xenon samples from each batch were measured with a connected residual gas analyzer RGA system. Xenon from one of the bottle batches was continuously filled to the distillation system. ReStoX-II is a system designed to rapidly recover and safely store up to 10 tonnes of xenon, that will serve as an fast recovery system during operation of the XENONnT experiment as well as xenon storage previous to the start of the experiment.

The full distillation campaign was split into three phases starting from April and was finished in July Xenon samples were extracted to measure the purified xenon purity at MPIK Heidelberg with a rare gas mass spectrometer. The existing slowcontrol system was updated for the distillation campaigns by the Weizmann Institute of Science. It is particularly sensitive to passing particles. Xenon is used in more than just dark matter experiments.

It is also in demand as a component in halogen lights such as the bluish headlights in some vehicles, in the bulbs for other specialized lighting such as flash lamps that drive lasers, and as a propellant for satellites and other spacecraft.

It is also used in semiconductor manufacturing and medical imaging, and it has been used as an anesthetic. Xenon is a by-product of the steel-making process, which uses liquid oxygen to wash away contaminants on the surface of molten iron. Russia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia are among the major producers of xenon.

Russia became a major player in this market during the era of the Soviet Union, when steel-making was largely centralized. Shutt says extracting its own xenon from air was not an option. There is no expiration date on xenon, Shutt said; it just needs to be tightly contained so no venting occurs.

To ensure that the dark matter detector is ultrasensitive, the LZ team is building a purification system at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to remove krypton, another rare gas that can get mixed in with liquid xenon. LUX started with xenon that had parts of krypton per billion and purified it down to four parts per trillion, and LZ needs xenon purified to a standard of 0.

The current plan is to purify the xenon in , and to run each batch through the purification process twice. The process is expected to take several months in total.

LZ is scheduled to start running in