Oxygen is the third most widely used chemical in the world, with an annual worldwide market of over $9bn. Uses for pure oxygen range from relatively small scale breathing oxygen systems for patients with pulmonary disorders and medical oxygen systems for hospitals, to large industrial applications such as chemical synthesis, enriched air for refining systems, syngas generation for GTL (Gas to Liquids) plants, or commercial coal or coke gasification systems.
Production
Oxygen is produced commercially as a gas or as a liquid by several methods.
These include cryogenic air separation, a process that compresses and cools atmospheric air, then – relying on different boiling points – separates the resulting liquid into its components in a distillation column. Another method is that of vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA), a non-cryogenic technology that produces oxygen from air by using an adsorbent in a pressure swing process to remove nitrogen.
Properties
Colorless, odorless and tasteless as mentioned, oxygen has poor solubility in water and a specific gravity of 1.105, which makes it slightly heavier than air. When cooled to its boiling point of -183°C, oxygen becomes a transparent, pale blue liquid that is slightly heavier than water.
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