Biology & Life Sciences

How many liters of O2 Will you use daily ??

Oxygen gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless.It’s usually purified by fractional distillation of liquefied air, but the element is found in many compounds, such as water, silica, and carbon dioxide. Oxygen was the atomic weight standard for the other elements until 1961 when it was replaced by carbon 12.

Oxygen made a good choice for the standard before much was known about isotopes because although there are 3 natural isotopes of oxygen, most of it is oxygen-16. This is why the atomic weight of oxygen (15.9994) is so close to 16.

About 99.76% of oxygen is oxygen-16. Oxygen gas normally is the divalent molecule O2. Ozone, O3, is another form of pure oxygen. Atomic oxygen, which is also called “singlet oxygen” does occur in nature, although the ion readily bonds to other elements.

Singlet oxygen may be found in the upper atmosphere. A single atom of oxygen usually has an oxidation number of -2. Oxygen dissolves in water. Fresh water contains about 6.04 mL of oxygen per litre, whereas seawater contains approximately 4.95 mL of oxygen per litre.

Oxygen is essential to human life and is needed by most lifeforms on Earth to survive. Animals and plants require it for respiration. It is found in the air we breathe and the water we drink (as H2O).

Oxygen has many practical uses. It is most commonly used in the manufacture of steel. It is also used for smelting metal from ore, to filter water, for making plastic, and creating rocket fuel.

Tanks of oxygen are also used to treat those with breathing problems and as life support for astronauts and scuba divers. Oxygen is also the third most abundant element in the universe and the most abundant element in the human body, making up 65% of the body’s mass.

1% of the Sun’s mass is oxygen. Oxygen found in the air is produced by photosynthesis – without plants there would be little oxygen in the air.

Most oxygen on Earth comes from tiny ocean plants called phytoplankton. Oxygen also exists as the allotrope, ozone. Ozone O3 is a different form of oxygen that combines three oxygen atoms together to create trioxygen.

Ozone O3 forms the ozone layer in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. It protects the Earth from the sun’s harmful rays by filtering UV light Oxygen supports combustion and is required for fire, but itself does not burn and is not flammable

Under standard conditions, oxygen is a gas at room temperature. It has a melting point of -218.79℃ and boiling point of -182.95℃. Free oxygen gas was nearly non-existant on Earth before the appearance of photosynthetic organisms about 3.5 billion years ago.

Oxygen is expected to be in existence on earth for the past 2.3 to 2.4 billion years. An average person inhales 16 kg of air in one day. Let us compare this amount to an average person’s food and water intake. An average person consumes 0.7kg of food and approximately 1.85kg of water daily.

Hence, it can be seen that it is important to have a clean source of air around us.When the dissolved oxygen in water is below 3mg/l, the water is called hypoxic. And when it is 0.5 mg/l, it is called anoxic. When we breathe, oxygen enters alveoli, in the lungs.

From there it is picked up by the red blood cells. The hemoglobin in the red blood cells joins oxygen and carries it around the body. The lung consumes about 5% of whole-body oxygen uptake. Did you know that a human being uses about 550 liters of pure oxygen (19 cubic feet) per day ?

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