Oxygen Cycle- Process, Uses, Production and Facts about Oxygen (2024)

FAQs

What is the use of oxygen cycle? ›

The oxygen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle of oxygen. It is mainly involved in maintaining the level of oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen is the main by-product of photosynthesis. It is involved in the oxidation of carbohydrates with the release of energy, carbon dioxide and water.

Photosynthesis is the process in which autotrophs such as green plants use carbon dioxide and water in presence of sunlight to synthesize nutrients such carbohydrates in the form of glucose and release oxygen. Hence oxygen is returned to the atmosphere by photosynthesis.

Oxygen makes up around 21% of the Earth's atmosphere. It makes up around 50% of the Earth's crust, making it the most common element in the Earth. 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.

Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria all create oxygen. They do this through photosynthesis. Using energy from sunlight, they turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. They use the sugars for food.

Oxygen cycle refers to the movement of oxygen through the atmosphere (air), biosphere (plants and animals) and the lithosphere (the Earth's crust). The oxygen cycle demonstrates how free oxygen is made available in each of these regions, as well as how it is used.

The main applications of oxygen in order of importance are: 1) melting, refining and manufacture of steel and other metals; 2) manufacture of chemicals by controlled oxidation; 3) rocket propulsion; 4) medical and biological life support; 5) mining, production and manufacture of stone and glass products.

Everyday functions of the body like digesting your food, moving your muscles or even just thinking, need oxygen. When these processes happen, a gas called carbon dioxide is produced as a waste product. The job of your lungs is to provide your body with oxygen and to get rid of the waste gas, carbon dioxide.

Oxygen is a gas that your body needs to work properly. Your cells need oxygen to make energy. Your lungs absorb oxygen from the air you breathe. The oxygen enters your blood from your lungs and travels to your organs and body tissues. Certain medical conditions can cause your blood oxygen levels to be too low.

Scientists estimate that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean. The majority of this production is from oceanic plankton — drifting plants, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize. One particular species, Prochlorococcus, is the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth.

The lungs and respiratory system allow us to breathe. They bring oxygen into our bodies (called inspiration, or inhalation) and send carbon dioxide out (called expiration, or exhalation). This exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is called respiration.

Which stage of photosynthesis produces oxygen? ›

Photosynthesis occurs in two stages. During the first stage, the energy from sunlight is absorbed by the chloroplast. Water is used, and oxygen is produced during this part of the process. During the second stage, carbon dioxide is used, and glucose is produced.

Oxygen (O₂) is evolved during photosynthetic electron transport when water is split by the oxygen-evolving complex to provide protons and electrons to the chloroplastic electron chain, thereby generating ATP and NADPH—the energy source and reducing power for plant metabolism.

Common uses of oxygen include production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight and diving.

Physical Properties of Oxygen

The gas is colourless, odourless and insipid in a normal state. Liquid oxygen is slightly paramagnetic. It is reactive and forms oxides with every element except helium, neon, krypton, and argon. It is moderately soluble in water.

It consists of the elements oxygen, sulfur, selenium, tellurium and polonium. These can be found in nature in both free and combined states. The group 16 elements are intimately related to life. Oxygen is an element that is widely known by the general public because of the large role it plays in sustaining life.

Oxygen makes up around 21% of the Earth's atmosphere and 50% of the mass of the Earth's crust. Oxygen is one of the atoms that makes up water (H₂O). Oxygen is an important element to life on Earth. It is the most abundant element in the human body making up around 65% of the body's mass.

Oxygen Family

Each has six of the desired eight electrons required for the octet in its highest energy level. This means that it takes or accepts two electrons from atoms of other elements to form anions or shares two electrons to form covalent bonds. Oxygen and sulfur are common elements.

Different methods of preparation of oxygen

The main source are air and water. It can be prepared by the electrolysis of water. From liquefaction of air we can also obtain oxygen by fractional distillation of liquid air.

Oxygen can build up in planetary atmospheres without life by chemical processes. For instance, water in the upper atmosphere of an exoplanet could interact with ultraviolet light from its sun, splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen would quickly escape into space, leaving oxygen behind.

Where is oxygen produced biology? ›

The chloroplast is involved in both stages of photosynthesis. The light reactions take place in the thylakoid. There, water (H₂O) is oxidized, and oxygen (O₂) is released.

oxygen cycle, circulation of oxygen in various forms through nature. Free in the air and dissolved in water, oxygen is second only to nitrogen in abundance among uncombined elements in the atmosphere. Plants and animals use oxygen to respire and return it to the air and water as carbon dioxide (CO₂).

When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, he answered age-old questions of why and how things burn.

oxygen, Gaseous chemical element, chemical symbol O, atomic number 8. It constitutes 21% (by volume) of air and more than 46% (by weight) of Earth's crust, where it is the most plentiful element. It is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas, occurring as the diatomic molecule O₂.

Natural oxygen is a mixture of three stable isotopes: oxygen-16 (99.759 percent), oxygen-17 (0.037 percent), and oxygen-18 (0.204 percent). Several artificially prepared radioactive isotopes are known.

The gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. The liquid and solid forms are a pale blue color and are strongly paramagnetic.

Oxygen helps to burn food and release energy. Oxygen helps in burning or combustion. Oxygen helps in breathing or respiration.

Oxygen is required in the cellular respiration in the electron transporter chain. It serves as the final electron acceptor of the electron transport chain facilitating the movement of electrons down the chain hence producing the ATP or adenosine triphosphate.

Your lungs are the pair of spongy, pinkish-gray organs in your chest. When you inhale (breathe in), air enters your lungs, and oxygen from that air moves to your blood. At the same time, carbon dioxide, a waste gas, moves from your blood to the lungs and is exhaled (breathed out).

Which best describes oxygen? ›

Oxygen is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas essential to living organisms, being taken up by animals, which convert it to carbon dioxide; plants, in turn, utilize carbon dioxide as a source of carbon and return the oxygen to the atmosphere.

Air is mostly gas

The air in Earth's atmosphere is made up of approximately 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen. Air also has small amounts of other gases, too, such as carbon dioxide, neon, and hydrogen.

Plants are autotrophs, which means they produce their own food. They use the process of photosynthesis to transform water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide into oxygen, and simple sugars that the plant uses as fuel.

In photosynthesis, solar energy is harvested and converted to chemical energy in the form of glucose using water and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is released as a byproduct.

The main applications of oxygen in order of importance are: 1) melting, refining and manufacture of steel and other metals; 2) manufacture of chemicals by controlled oxidation; 3) rocket propulsion; 4) medical and biological life support; 5) mining, production and manufacture of stone and glass products.

Our Sun is middle-aged, with about five billion years left in its lifespan. However, it's expected to go through some changes as it gets older, as we all do — and these changes will affect our planet.

Stage-1: All green plants during the process of photosynthesis, release oxygen back into the atmosphere as a by-product. Stage-2: All aerobic organisms use free oxygen for respiration. Stage-3: Animals exhale Carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere which is again used by the plants during photosynthesis.

Common uses of oxygen include production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight and diving.

Oxygen is generated during photosynthesis by plants and many types of microbes. Plants both use oxygen (during respiration) and produce it (via photosynthesis). Oxygen can also form a molecule of three atoms, which is known as ozone (O₃).

The answer is tiny organisms known as cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. These microbes conduct photosynthesis: using sunshine, water and carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates and, yes, oxygen.

Where is oxygen produced? ›

Scientists estimate that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean. The majority of this production is from oceanic plankton — drifting plants, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize. One particular species, Prochlorococcus, is the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth.

Everyone's inner ear would explode.

As mentioned, we would lose about 21 percent of the air pressure in an instant, equivalent to being teleported to the top of the high Andes (elevation, about 2,000 meters).

In a study published today, researchers report that, by the end of 2021, the MIT-led MOXIE project was able to produce oxygen on seven experimental runs on the Red Planet.

By around 600 million years ago, concentrations of molecular oxygen in our atmosphere finally reached around 21 percent.

In the biosphere, the main processes in the oxygen cycle are respiration and photosynthesis. During respiration animals and humans breathe by consuming oxygen to be used in the metabolic process and exhale carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis is the reverse of this process and is done by plants and plankton.