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VIII. Reading

Exercise 17. Look through text C and say whether the information given in the text similar or different with text A . Say what is the difference.

Text C.

OXYGEN

Oxygen is the most abundant of the elements. It forms one-fifth, by volume, of the air: eight-ninths of the weight of water; and one-half of the total weight of all rocks. Oxygen was discovered in 1774 by Joseph Priestley who obtained it by heating mercuric oxide — a method no longer used because of its expense and its low yield. In industry oxygen is obtained by the fractional distillation of liquid air.

Oxygen is a colourless gas, odourless, when pure (the lab­oratory sample smells slightly of chlorine). It is denser than air and slightly soluble in water. (About 3 ml oxygen dissolve in 100 ml water under room conditions). Upon this slight solubility depends the breathing of all aquatic life.

Oxygen is neutral to litmus, doesn't burn but supports combustion vigorously. The main uses of oxygen depend upon its ability to support life through respiration. Oxygen is used to enrich the air blast during the production of iron from ore in the blast-furnace and the conversion of iron into steel. This produces a higher furnace temperature, an increased yield of iron and steel, and a purer product. Burning appa­ratus fed with oxygen and acetylene will give a flame with a temperature of about 3,000°C. This flame will melt steel easily. It is used in engineering for welding metal sections together. For small works and factories cylinders of compres­sed oxygen are most convenient. In engineering works and shipyards where larger quantities of oxygen are used liquid oxygen is delivered and stored in spherical insulated tanks.

The oxygen evaporates from these and the gaseous oxygen is piped to the work sites.

Breathing apparatus in which oxygen supplied by a cyl­inder of compressed gas is inhaled through a face-mask is used by airmen and mountain climbers at high altitudes, by divers, miners in rescue teams, by firemen entering smoke-filled buildings, and by hospital patients whose breathing is feeble.

Exercise 18. Do you know that:

  • the human body is over 60 per cent oxygen?

  • water is nearly 89 per cent oxygen?

  • in 1774 an English chemist Joseph Priestley pre­pared oxygen by heating red oxide of mercury?

  • at about the same time a Swedish apothecary Scheele also prepared oxygen by this method?

— oxygen changes to a liquid when cooled to —183°C?

— oxygen is supposed to appear in the atmosphere as a result of secondary processes, e.g. the vital processes of green plants?

Exercise 19 .Discussion points :

1.The main properties of oxygen .

2. The application of oxygen .

3. The main kinds of hydrogen .

Supplementary reading Text d. The story of oxygen

It is very easy in this modern age to accept, without much ap­preciation, valuable work which was done quite a long time ago. Two men stand out for their pioneer work on air and oxygen. One was English, Joseph Priestley; the other was French, Antoine Lavoisier.