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Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

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Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#61

Post by javawizard »

> Argon [...] cost about $2 per liter each.

Uh, what?? No it doesn't.

I'm a hobbyist welder. When TIG welding you typically use 100% argon gas. I have a 60 cu ft cylinder hooked up to my welder right now; it costs $89 to refill at my local Airgas store.

That's approximately 5.2 cents per liter.

Here's a 40 cu ft tank of argon for sale on Amazon for $205: https://www.amazon.com/100-Argon-Welding-Tank-CGA/dp/B00I4Z6...

That's a new cylinder so most of the cost is the cylinder itself, but even then, that only comes out to 18.1 cents.

How on earth did TFA come up with $2/liter? Did they get liters and cubic feet mixed up while doing their research?

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#62

Post by ungreased0675 »

ttyprintk wrote: post #23
bee_rider wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the intro I was expecting g something totally impossibly expensive but > Xenon is extremely expensive — a single 30-second dose costs between $50 and $80 I mean, it just seems like a normal rip off, not even that exclusive.

Krypton is cheaper, and not yet banned in international competition. Xenon and argon are banned. There is no test for any of these.

What does Krypton do for you?

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#63

Post by devilbunny »

ttyprintk wrote: post #50
alan-hn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React is not a good term to use here but rather interact. Saying something reacts means that we are moving around electrons and possibly forming covalent or ionic bonds. Intermolecular interactions are quite a bit different

Or displace, in this case exotic xenon for ambient argon and nitrogen.

Argon is basically a rounding error in atmospheric gases.

Xenon has been the gas anesthetic of the future for a long time now. It does have one set of good qualities: it's not halogenated (like all common gas anesthetics), but it's nonflammable (there are very good anesthetic gases, like cyclopropane, that are extremely flammable and have thus been totally phased out of use), and because it's such a heavy atom, it essentially never leaves the atmosphere - no matter how much you use, you can always recapture it from the atmosphere.

It's not particularly cheap, though.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#64

Post by bee_rider »

ttyprintk wrote: post #23
bee_rider wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the intro I was expecting g something totally impossibly expensive but > Xenon is extremely expensive — a single 30-second dose costs between $50 and $80 I mean, it just seems like a normal rip off, not even that exclusive.

Krypton is cheaper, and not yet banned in international competition. Xenon and argon are banned. There is no test for any of these.

International competition?

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#65

Post by ttyprintk »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #62
ttyprintk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Krypton is cheaper, and not yet banned in international competition. Xenon and argon are banned. There is no test for any of these.

What does Krypton do for you?

I don’t know. It’s the only other affordable noble gas heavier than air. Neon can float away. I would expect that would make neon safer. I’ve heard you have to stand on your head to expel argon, krypton, and xenon.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#66

Post by ttyprintk »

bee_rider wrote: post #64
ttyprintk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Krypton is cheaper, and not yet banned in international competition. Xenon and argon are banned. There is no test for any of these.

International competition?

World anti-doping agency. I think hydrogen sulfide is also banned.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#67

Post by ttyprintk »

devilbunny wrote: post #63
ttyprintk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or displace, in this case exotic xenon for ambient argon and nitrogen.

Argon is basically a rounding error in atmospheric gases. Xenon has been the gas anesthetic of the future for a long time now. It does have one set of good qualities: it's not halogenated (like all common gas anesthetics), but it's nonflammable (there are very good anesthetic gases, like cyclopropane, that are extremely flammable and have thus been totally phased out of use), and because it's such a heavy atom, it es…

Much higher quality comment than mine above.

I suppose from the article that a dose of Xenon is $300 of gas, of which $50-$80 is not immediately reclaimed by a rebreather.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#68

Post by schoen »

ttyprintk wrote: post #65
ungreased0675 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Krypton do for you?

I don’t know. It’s the only other affordable noble gas heavier than air. Neon can float away. I would expect that would make neon safer. I’ve heard you have to stand on your head to expel argon, krypton, and xenon.

In the YouTube video linked elsewhere in this thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40805461, someone breathing in a balloon-full of xenon gas clearly struggles to expel it afterward, remarking that he can feel its heaviness, but also visibly succeeds after just a few deep breaths. I guess this could still be dangerous if you were fully unconscious and breathing shallowly (and absolutely if you were unconscious and wearing a device that kept delivering more xenon over time), but it doesn't look like it's literally necessary to turn upside down to get it out of the lungs.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#69

Post by nullc »

There is another post that is sounding an alarm on inert gas asphyxiation which I think is quite important but it's flagged, presumably because of a sidebar admonishment about drug addiction.

Breathing inert gasses is extremely dangerous. It is not like holding your breath: because the gas you inhale is free of oxygen, it actively pulls oxygen out of your blood. Instead of thinking about breath holding, think more like the USCSB videos where someone walks into a space with a nitrogen atmosphere and immediately drop unconscious, then someone goes in to save the first person (already knowing about the danger) and they both die. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ItJe2Incs ).

When narcotic gasses are used for anesthetic purposes they're used with a gas manifold that mixes in pure oxygen to achieve a gas mix that won't kill the subject. Even this is easy to get wrong, and a wrong mix due to a flat tank or an incorrect setting can kill someone very quickly and quietly.

It's also not clear to me how psychologically safe it is, I've seen at least one clearly unhinged person on twitter going on about their xenon use... but I dunno if the drug use lead to they psych issues or the psych issues lead the the drug use. or if their issue was just related to inadvertent oxygen deprivation as a side effect of their xenon use. Studies of anesthetic use may not tell us much about recreational use since they're presumably not dosing people daily or multiple times daily for weeks at a time. -- it's not like you can easily purchase single doses, that bottle isn't going to use itself!

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#70

Post by nullc »

sneak wrote: post #45
perihelions wrote: post #10

[flagged]

There’s nothing possibly lethal about 30 seconds of breathing pure Xenon unless you do it standing on a tightrope. A desire to experiment with a relatively safe psychoactive on a 30 second basis doesn’t come near “pathological”.

People do die using asphyxiant gasses recreationally. Xenon's much greater density and narcotic potential may make it more dangerous than nitrous oxide.
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