We often hear that oxygen is crucial to living things and there is no life without oxygen. Also, we hear that water contains oxygen. Or, that there is oxygen in the air, in the soil, and in our bodies. But what exactly is oxygen and how really is important?
Let's discuss:
Oxygen is a chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8, which means it has eight protons in its nucleus. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table. This group is also known as the oxygen family. It consists of the elements oxygen
Oxygen is a highly reactive nonmetal and oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides, chemical compounds with one or more oxygen atoms combined with another element.
Oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe by mass, after hydrogen and helium. It is a non-metal element and is found naturally as a molecule.
Oxygen is found all around us. It is one of the atoms that make up water, together with Hydrogen
Oxygen occurs mainly as an element in the atmosphere. It also occurs in oceans, lakes, rivers, and ice caps in the form of water. Nearly 89% of the weight of water is oxygen.
Oxygen was isolated by Michael Sendivogius before 1604, but it is commonly believed that the element was discovered independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, in 1773 or earlier, and Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire, in 1774.
Priority is often given to Priestley because his work was published first. Priestley, however, called oxygen "dephlogisticated air", and did not recognize it as a chemical element.
The name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, who first recognized oxygen as a chemical element and correctly characterized the role it plays in combustion.
Allotropes are different forms of the same element. Oxygen can be found in different forms or allotropes. The most known are dioxygen and ozone.
Dioxygen
At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O2. Each molecule is made up of two oxygen atoms that are strongly joined together. Oxygen has low melting and boiling points, so it is in a gas state at room temperature.
Diatomic oxygen gas
This oxygen (O2) is vital for respiration, which is the process that transfers energy from glucose to cells in living organisms.
Oxygen is taken up by animals, which convert it to carbon dioxide. Plants, in turn, utilize carbon dioxide as a source of carbon and return the oxygen back to the atmosphere. Oxygen is generated during photosynthesis by plants and many types of microbes.
Oxygen is active in the physiological processes of almost all known organisms, and that is involved especially in combustion.
Ozone
There is another form (allotrope) of oxygen, named Ozone
O3 strongly absorbs ultraviolet
Other known allotropes of Oxygen are:
Oxygen has many functions in nature. Some of them are respiration, decomposition, and combustion.
Oxygen is an element that can be a solid, liquid, or gas depending on its temperature and pressure.
In both their liquid and solid states, the substances are clear with a light sky-blue color.
Most of the oxygen comes from tiny ocean plants, called phytoplankton, that live near the water's surface and drift with the currents. Like all plants, they photosynthesize – that is, they use sunlight and carbon dioxide to make food. And as we already know, the byproduct of photosynthesis is oxygen.
Scientists believe that phytoplankton contributes between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere.
Large amounts of oxygen can be extracted from liquefied air through a process known as fractional distillation. Oxygen can also be produced through the electrolysis of water or by heating potassium chlorate
Oxygen can be produced industrial too. The most common commercial method for producing oxygen is the separation of air using either a cryogenic distillation process (the process in which Nitrogen and Oxygen are separated from the air) or a vacuum swing adsorption process (here we have a segregation of certain gases from a gaseous mixture at near ambient pressure, and the process then swings to a vacuum to regenerate the adsorbent material).
Oxygen as gas is required to produce energy in industrial processes, generators, and ships and it is also used in airplanes and cars. Common uses of oxygen include the production of steel, plastics, and textiles, brazing, welding, and cutting of steel and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight, and diving.
Oxygen has medial uses too, in the treatment of diseases, major trauma, anaphylaxis, major bleeding, shock, active convulsions, and hypothermia.
The circulation of oxygen in various forms through nature is called the Oxygen cycle. The cycle of oxygen describes the different forms in which oxygen is found and how it moves on Earth through various reservoirs. Three major oxygen reservoirs are present: the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the lithosphere.
The oxygen cycle starts with photosynthesis, during which plants release oxygen; then the oxygen that is released by plants is used by humans, animals, and other organisms for respiration, i.e. breathing; then animals exhale Carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere which is again used by the plants during photosynthesis and the cycle repeats.
