• Question: could we ever ruin out of oxygen?

    Asked by clodagh :) to Colin, John, Kevin, Shikha, Triona on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by C.butsy.
    • Photo: Kevin Motherway

      Kevin Motherway answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      No. Oxygen will always be present in our world. It may not always be available as Oxygen gas that’s available to breath, but oxygen is so reactive with other elements there’s billions of tons of oxygen bound up in Silica SiO2, Iron Oxides FeO2 in the Earth’s crust alone. There’s oxygen throughout the atmosphere constantly being replenished by all plants and particularly algae in the ocean. If all the O2 in the atmosphere was to disappear in the morning we could even separate water using electrical current into Hydrogen (to use as fuel) and Oxygen to breath. This is why the discovery of water on Mars and on the Moon is so important as astronauts could mine ice and then get their fuel for the journey home and Oxygen to breathe.

    • Photo: Shikha Sharma

      Shikha Sharma answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      Hi Clodagh,
      Earth’s air contains 21% oxygen. We consume oxygen through breathing, burning fossil fuel and release carbon dioxide. However, our mother nature has unique way to support our life. Carbon dioxide is recycled to oxygen by photosynthesis process by plants and that’s how we get the oxygen back. However, the problem is as our population is growing the rate of consumption of oxygen is relatively increasing comparing the rate of generation of oxygen. Still, oxygen concentration reaching to 0% is nearly impossible. It is not going to happen in near future.
      But humans will die if oxygen concentration in air reaches near 10%.

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