Oxygen


Oxygen, symbol O, colorless, odorless, tasteless, slightly magnetic
gaseous element. On earth, oxygen is more abundant than any other element.
Oxygen was discovered in 1774 by the British chemist Joseph Priestley and,
independently, by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele; it was shown to be
an elemental gas by the French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in his classic
experiments on combustion.
Large amounts of oxygen are used in high-temperature welding torches, in
which a mixture of oxygen and another gas produces a flame of much higher
temperature than is obtained by burning gases in air. Oxygen is administered to
patients whose breathing is impaired and also to people in aircraft flying at
high altitudes, where the poor oxygen concentration cannot support normal
respiration. Oxygen-enriched air is used in open-hearth furnaces for steel
manufacture.
Most of the oxygen produced in the United States is used to make a
mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called......

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Title: Oxygen
Approximate Word Count: 735
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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