Would a noble gas react with a radical?

alpha_wolf

... or would it be inert to it as well? And if this depends on the particular gas and radical, could you give an example of when a reaction would/wouldn't occur?

gravenewworld

Noble gases are called noble gases for one reason, they never react (usually). Noble gas compounds have been made, but the ionization energy required in order to react noble gases for the most part is rediculous and serves no practical purpose. As you go down the list of noble gases, the easier they can react since they are bigger and hold their outer electrons less tightly which is why you will see Xe compounds like XeF6. This site has a pretty good chart of ionization energies for the noble gases. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...al/ionize.html

chem_tr

Noble gases, as gravenewworld also mentioned, almost never prefer to react with compounds other than fluorine. Only fluorides were obtained with xenon, lower homologues are indeed hard to be reacted.