Oxygen

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=History =

Creation
Oxygen was first largely created as an element 200 million years ago by photosynthetic cyanobacteria, causing the extinction of most anaerobic bacteria, and forcing the rest to adapt to become aerobic. This increased Earth's oxygen levels from less than 1% to 20%, making it habitable for larger eukaryotic life. Prior to this jump in oxygen production, Earth still had oxygen, however approximately 4 billion years ago, the atmosphere was around 0.01% oxygen. This is when the first cells appeared on Earth, and ever since then oxygen production has accelerated as time passed and organisms evolved.

Discovery
The first known use of oxygen was by Leonardo da Vinci, who believed that air was composed of two parts, one of which (oxygen) was flammable. Credit for the discovery of oxygen is given to Joseph Preistley, who was the first to publish his findings even though Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered oxygen two years earlier. Preistley shared his discovery with French tax collector and part-time chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was the first to classify oxygen as an element, and thus disprove the phlogiston theory.

The widespread creation of oxygen killed off most organisms on the planet! Cyanobacteria were only a small part of the bacteria living on the earth, and anaerobic bacteria were much more plentiful, but oxygen was a dangerous toxin to them that caused their near-extinction.
 * Fun Fact! ﻿ **

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Uses
media type="custom" key="7996126" align="right"Oxygen was one of the elements first used by John Dalton in the development of his law of multiple proportions, which stated that elements combine through atoms in small whole numbers, and helped Dalton to prove that all matter was composed of atoms. Because oxygen is a basic element, it is found in many different compounds, including a large amount of oxides; compounds like water, which are essential to life, as well as a multitude of other compounds used for everything from medicine to smelting metal. Oxygen is such an important element to humans, that nearly anything we do or make requires the use of oxygen in some form or another. We use it to gather energy from carbohydrates and our machines use it to gather energy from combustible fuel, so it is easily assumed that unless energy from solar panels or nuclear power plants, just about anything we use or make involves the use of oxygen. Oxygen is also found in water (H 2 O), which is used widely across the world for millions of different tasks, projects, or jobs.

=Economics = Though oxygen is freely available in the atmosphere, there is still a market for it, in its elemental and compound forms. There is a tentative market for canned, pure oxygen, claiming to ease hangovers and give energy and focus. The product is being sold nationwide in 7-11's in Japan, and being sold at bars and supermarkets in the U.S. and England. Oxygen therapy and equipment for people afflicted with COPD is a market on the rise, matching the increase of people diagnosed with the disease and projected to grow to four hundred millions dollars this year. Water is a compound of oxygen, people spending $50 to 100 million dollars annually on bottled water alone.

 =Environment =



Physical World
Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe, it makes up 21% of the Earth's atmosphere and nearly half of its crust. Oxygen and hydrogen also constitute water and ice, which covers two-thirds of of the planet, found in oceans, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water and clouds are suspended particles of ice in the atmosphere. Oxygen is also commonly found in as iron oxide or rust.



Biological World
Oxygen is essential to life on Earth, as it is a key component in the biological process of respiration, by which living things obtain bioavailable energy from consumed matter. Oxygen is also a component of CO2, which is used by plants to perform photosynthesis; the process by which plants obtain biounavailable energy from sunlight which is later converted into bioavailable energy through respiration. Ozone (O3), an allotrope of oxygen, is also essential to life. Its properties and location in Earth's atmosphere allow O3 to absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise inhibit life on earth. Oxygen is also a component of water, which is also essential to life. Water is used by living organisms for things such as transportation of resources and nutrients, temperature control, cell construction, and is one of the major components of organic matter.

 =Effect on Human Health = Oxygen makes up two-thirds of the mass of the human body, and is required to preform aerobic respiration, which provides humans the energy to live, oxygen is also required for DNA. Oxygen also forms dangerous free radicals which have been linked to aging and cancer, and can be prevented by taking antioxidants. And is also a very reactive element, in its elemental and allotrope forms and fire and explosions being detrimental to human health.

 = Chemistry/Physics = media type="youtube" key="b4wveY2-lCo?fs=1" height="214" width="358" align="right"



Properties
Boiling point - 90.2° Kelvin, -182.9° Celsius, -297.2° Fahrenheit

Melting point - 54.8° Kelvin, -218.3° Celsius, -360.9° Fahrenheit

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 29px;">Electronic Configuration - 1s12s22p4

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Isotopes
Naturally Occuring Isotopes

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 * Isotope || Atomic Mass || Natural Abundance ||
 * O-16 || 15.99491463amu || 99.757% ||
 * O-17 || 16.9991313amu || 0.038% ||
 * O-18 || 17.9991603amu || 0.205% ||


 * Isotope || Atomic Mass || Half-Life ||
 * O-14 || 14.008595amu || 70.60s ||
 * O-15 || 15.003065amu || 122.2s ||
 * O-19 || 19.003577amu || 26.9s ||
 * O-20 || 20.004076amu || 13.5s ||
 * O-21 || 21.008730amu || 3.4s ||
 * O-22 || 21.0101amu || 2.2s ||

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Allotropes
Oxygen has two naturally occuring allotropes, O2, or dioxygen, and O3, otherwise know as ozone or trioxygen. Dioxygen composes about one fifth of earth's atmosphere and is a colorless gas that forms a pale blue liquid upon condensation. Ozone is a highly reactive blue gas which is widely known for its properties in absorbing ultraviolet light that would otherwise inhibit life on Earth. Ozone will convert to dioxygen if there is no thermodynamic catalyst.