Question: Can you make an oxygen mask using electrolisis?

Jean Bourke answered on 12 Nov 2012:

Eh….I suppose so.

I’m totally just theorising now but electrolysis can be used to generate oxygen which can be trapped and put into a gas cylinder. Of course you could trap is suck some out with a straw is you were trapping it somewhere it was just being added to some already present air.

When someone is breathing from an oxygen thank, they are not breathing pure water, they are breathing oxygen enriched air. Now that you have your oxygen you’d have to ensure you have the right valves and stuff to keep it under control. Oxygen is very very dangerous and readily explodes so you have to be ridiculously careful when handling it.

Quite often if you don’t need a rich supply of oxygen for a patient, say the air is just bad, you can use a mask that removes most of the harmful stuff by reacting with it. This is what the army uses.