Preparation of Oxygen

Oxygen is one of the most important and basic elements found in the earth’s atmosphere. All living animals need oxygen in the air to survive. Without oxygen, there would be no trace of life on earth. Apart from being one of the basic elements on earth for a living being to survive, it is important in a lot of other areas as well. Oxygen is used in medical applications, commercial and industrial practices all over the world. It is very much possible to manufacture oxygen in a laboratory. Apart from the necessary apparatus, the main ingredients required to make oxygen in a laboratory are hydrogen peroxide and manganese (IV) oxide. It must be noted that hydrogen peroxide is the main ingredient for the preparation and the manganese (IV) oxide acts as a catalyst to enhance the speed of the process.

Laboratory Preparation of Oxygen

There are a lot of laboratory processes for producing oxygen. Among them, one of the most common ways of preparation of oxygen is in a laboratory by the method of preparation of oxygen by simply treating hydrogen peroxide in a particular manner so that it decomposes to form water and oxygen from which then, the oxygen can be extracted. The equation can be expressed as:

Hydrogen Peroxide → Water + Oxygen 

2H₂0₂(aq) → 2H₂O(L) + O₂(g)

Now, if manganese (IV) oxide is added to the hydrogen peroxide, the rate of the entire process is increased and oxygen bubbles start to give off. 

To start the process of preparation of oxygen in a laboratory, hydrogen peroxide is poured into a container that is conical in shape and contains some manganese oxide inside it. After that, the gas which comes out of it is collected in another container that is upside down and filled with water. Once the oxygen reaches the container filled with water, it pushes the water out of the container and the oxygen remains inside. This gas collecting container can also be substituted with a gas syringe to collect the oxygen produced by this method.

Industrial Methods of Preparing Oxygen

Many years ago, it was discovered that it is possible to produce oxygen industrially by multiple types of cryogenic distillation processes. The oxygen that is up to 99 percent pure can be made in a laboratory these days. In recent times, the method of vacuum swing absorption has been used a lot. The produced oxygen can be up to 90-93 percent pure and thus, can be used in specific applications only. 

Among other methods, it can also be produced by freeing oxygen from a chemical compound in the form of pure gas. It must be noted that this method is used in the medical industries, aircraft, spacecraft, submarines, etc. as this method cannot make a huge quantity of oxygen per batch.

Conclusion

Oxygen is one of the most important and basic elements found in the earth’s atmosphere. All living animals need oxygen in the air to survive. Without oxygen, there would be no trace of life on earth. Over the years, scientists have discovered multiple ways of preparation of oxygen in laboratories and also identified other diverse uses of this gas. Oxygen is used in medical applications, commercial, and industrial practices. There are a lot of different methods of preparing oxygen and different methods may have different purity rates of the concerned gas. One of the most common methods for the laboratory preparation of oxygen is by the method of preparation of oxygen by simply treating hydrogen peroxide in a particular manner so that it decomposes to form water and oxygen from which then, the oxygen can be extracted.