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Understanding Oxygen: Properties & Importance

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe and makes up 20.95% of the Earth's atmosphere. It is highly reactive and readily forms oxides. Oxygen is essential for aerobic respiration and combustion, and is continuously replenished through photosynthesis which produces oxygen from water and carbon dioxide.

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8 views1 page

Understanding Oxygen: Properties & Importance

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe and makes up 20.95% of the Earth's atmosphere. It is highly reactive and readily forms oxides. Oxygen is essential for aerobic respiration and combustion, and is continuously replenished through photosynthesis which produces oxygen from water and carbon dioxide.

Uploaded by

Amit Samad
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Oxygen 

is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of


the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that
readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. Oxygen is Earth's most
abundant element, and after hydrogen and helium, it is the third-most abundant element in the
universe. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a
colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O
2. Diatomic oxygen gas currently constitutes 20.95% of the Earth's atmosphere, though this

has changed considerably over long periods of time. Oxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's
crust in the form of oxides.[3]
Dioxygen provides the energy released in combustion[4] and aerobic cellular respiration,[5] and many
major classes of organic molecules in living organisms contain oxygen atoms, such
as proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and fats, as do the major constituent inorganic
compounds of animal shells, teeth, and bone. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a
component of water, the major constituent of lifeforms. Oxygen is continuously replenished in Earth's
atmosphere by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and
carbon dioxide. Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in air without being
continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms. Another form (allotrope) of
oxygen, ozone (O
3), strongly absorbs ultraviolet UVB radiation and the high-altitude ozone layer helps protect

the biosphere from ultraviolet radiation. However, ozone present at the surface is a byproduct


of smog and thus a pollutant.
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 for Priestley because his work was
published first. Priestley, however, called oxygen "dephlogisticated a

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