lack of oxygen

jonbeeza

jonbeeza

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New Delhi hospitals run out of oxygen, is in the news as well as the Indonesian missing sub, believed to be under water and in need of oxygen.

Just reading up on Oxygen and it says, " Oxygen is one of the most important and abundant elements on Earth".

The stuff floating freely about us, and in abundance. So why is it so hard to get hold of, is it a difficult process, or harness or something?
 
The majority of the atmosphere is nitrogen, so processes are needed to extract oxygen.
The oxygen in water is combined with hydrogen, so processes and needed to extract it.
The oxygen in the earth is in the form of oxides because it had combined with other elements, so processes are needed to extract it.
 
The 2 most common ways of 'producing' it - electrolysis of water or fractional distillation of liquified air - require specialist kit and lots of energy.
 
For many years I thought Oxygen ad Air were the same things. :oops: :$
 
Nitrogen — 78 percent.
Oxygen — 21 percent.
Argon — 0.93 percent.
Carbon dioxide — 0.04 percent.
Or there about's.
 
jonbeeza said:
The stuff floating freely about us, and in abundance. So why is it so hard to get hold of, is it a difficult process, or harness or something?
Click to expand...

I think the biggest problem is logistics. To move it around once you've extracted it, you need to keep it pretty cold. Skimming a BBC article it seems the factories they have that extract it are concentrated in one area because in normal times the vast majority is used for industry and only a small amount for medical. All of a sudden they need all the oxygen they can make for medical uses and even when they "make" it, it's in the wrong place.
 
the amounts of oxygen you need for a covid patient is huge, multiply that by 100s of 1000s and no supply system could cope.
we did well in this country to barley keep the lid on covid, but India has no chance :-(
 
When it’s extracted, or the % increased in diving gases specialist filters are used in the compressor to remove some of the nitrogen in the air. Airplane emergency oxygen ( the masks that drop down) use chemical generators which also generate a lot of heat & don’t last more than a few minutes.
O2 isn’t that hard to extract but does need a high level of logistics to supply
 
I obviously had an idea that there was more to filling air tanks, than just sticking a foot pump hose in and pump away.
Just did not realise it was that complex.
 
jonbeeza said:
I obviously had an idea that there was more to filling air tanks, than just sticking a foot pump hose in and pump away.
Just did not realise it was that complex.
Click to expand...

its not horrendously complex but having that amount of gas available at very short Notice is tricky, there is also the question of do the hospitals have the infrastructure to deliver that amount of oxygen where it’s needed
 
JonathanRyan said:
I think the biggest problem is logistics. To move it around once you've extracted it, you need to keep it pretty cold. Skimming a BBC article it seems the factories they have that extract it are concentrated in one area because in normal times the vast majority is used for industry and only a small amount for medical. All of a sudden they need all the oxygen they can make for medical uses and even when they "make" it, it's in the wrong place.
Click to expand...
There is a BOC plant in Scunthorpe near the steelworks, now I know why, BiL always said the amount of air it spooked in created a depression around the area and hence the crap weather there.
 
Also hospitals don't have inexhaustible storage capacity for it on site... Nor distributing it within the building. So you need continuous replenishment. My modest local district general hospital gets through about a tanker a week normally... In peak corona it was 3-4 (and maintaining pressure/flow became an issue)
 
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