Importance of Oxygen

The importance of Oxygen

Oxygen is very important. Oxygen is absolutely vital for sustaining life as we know it. The oxygen atom is one of the most abundant atomic species in the cosmos.

Oxygen is the most common element in the atmosphere

Oxygen is the most common element in the earth's crust. Diatomic oxygen gas comprises more than 20% of the atmosphere.

Uses of Oxygen

The most important useof oxygen comes to all of us is the air we breathe. Commercially speaking, the United States annually produces some 15 million tons of liquid oxygen for applications in industry, aerospace, the military, and medicine. Oxygen is important to life, and it is big business.

Properties of Oxygen

Oxygen is usually described as a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is essential to living organisms. Given the proper conditions for the reactions, oxygen reacts with virtually every known element to produce oxides. Oxygen heads up the Group-VIA elements on the periodic table. The other members of this oxygen group are sulfur (S), selenium (Se), tellurium (Te), and polonium (Po). All except polonium are relatively plentiful in nature. There are two allotropes of oxygen, one composed of two oxygen molecules (0₂) and the other composed of three (0₃), The latter is known as ozone.