27 Facts About Oxygen

1.

Oxygen is Earth's most abundant element, and after hydrogen and helium, it is the third-most abundant element in the universe.

FactSnippet No. 485,355
2.

Oxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of oxides.

FactSnippet No. 485,356
3.

Oxygen is continuously replenished in Earth's atmosphere by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and carbon dioxide.

FactSnippet No. 485,357
4.

Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms.

FactSnippet No. 485,358
5.

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.

FactSnippet No. 485,359
6.

Oxygen thought that the lungs separate nitroaereus from air and pass it into the blood and that animal heat and muscle movement result from the reaction of nitroaereus with certain substances in the body.

FactSnippet No. 485,360
7.

Oxygen wrote an account of this discovery in a manuscript titled Treatise on Air and Fire, which he sent to his publisher in 1775.

FactSnippet No. 485,361
8.

Oxygen noted that candles burned brighter in the gas and that a mouse was more active and lived longer while breathing it.

FactSnippet No. 485,362
9.

Oxygen used these and similar experiments, all started in 1774, to discredit the phlogiston theory and to prove that the substance discovered by Priestley and Scheele was a chemical element.

FactSnippet No. 485,363
10.

Oxygen noted that air rushed in when he opened the container, which indicated that part of the trapped air had been consumed.

FactSnippet No. 485,364
11.

Oxygen noted that the tin had increased in weight and that increase was the same as the weight of the air that rushed back in.

FactSnippet No. 485,365
12.

Oxygen entered the English language despite opposition by English scientists and the fact that the Englishman Priestley had first isolated the gas and written about it.

FactSnippet No. 485,366
13.

Oxygen sent a telegram on December 22, 1877, to the French Academy of Sciences in Paris announcing his discovery of liquid oxygen.

FactSnippet No. 485,367
14.

Oxygen was liquefied in a stable state for the first time on March 29, 1883, by Polish scientists from Jagiellonian University, Zygmunt Wroblewski and Karol Olszewski.

FactSnippet No. 485,368
15.

Oxygen is the most abundant chemical element by mass in the Earth's biosphere, air, sea and land.

FactSnippet No. 485,369
16.

Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium.

FactSnippet No. 485,370
17.

Oxygen gas is the second most common component of the Earth's atmosphere, taking up 20.

FactSnippet No. 485,371
18.

Oxygen is used in mitochondria in the generation of ATP during oxidative phosphorylation.

FactSnippet No. 485,372
19.

Oxygen is damaging to obligately anaerobic organisms, which were the dominant form of early life on Earth until began to accumulate in the atmosphere about 2.

FactSnippet No. 485,373
20.

Oxygen gas is increasingly obtained by these non-cryogenic technologies.

FactSnippet No. 485,374
21.

Oxygen is stored and shipped in smaller cylinders containing the compressed gas; a form that is useful in certain portable medical applications and oxy-fuel welding and cutting.

FactSnippet No. 485,375
22.

Oxygen therapy is used to treat emphysema, pneumonia, some heart disorders, some disorders that cause increased pulmonary artery pressure, and any disease that impairs the body's ability to take up and use gaseous oxygen.

FactSnippet No. 485,376
23.

Oxygen gas is poisonous to the anaerobic bacteria that cause gas gangrene, so increasing its partial pressure helps kill them.

FactSnippet No. 485,377
24.

Oxygen bars are establishments found in the United States since the late 1990s that offer higher than normal exposure for a minimal fee.

FactSnippet No. 485,378
25.

Oxygen is used in oxyacetylene welding, burning acetylene with to produce a very hot flame.

FactSnippet No. 485,379
26.

Oxygen is present in the atmosphere in trace quantities in the form of carbon dioxide.

FactSnippet No. 485,380
27.

Oxygen reacts spontaneously with many organic compounds at or below room temperature in a process called autoxidation.

FactSnippet No. 485,381