LIQUID OXYGEN

LIQUID OXYGEN

Subject : Science & tech

Context :Invoking the Disaster Management Act, the Centre ordered States that all liquid oxygen, including the existing stock with private plants, should be made available to the government and will be used for medical purposes only.

Concept :

• Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen.
• Liquid oxygen has a pale blue color and is strongly paramagnetic: it can be suspended between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet.
• Because of its cryogenic nature, liquid oxygen can cause the materials it touches to become extremely brittle.
• Liquid oxygen is also a very powerful oxidizing agent: organic materials will burn rapidly and energetically in liquid oxygen.

Uses

• It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which has continued to the present.
• In commerce, liquid oxygen is classified as an industrial gas and is widely used for industrial and medical purposes. Liquid oxygen is obtained from the oxygen found naturally in air by fractional distillation in a cryogenic air separation plant.
• Liquid oxygen is the most common cryogenic liquid oxidizer propellant for spacecraft rocket applications, usually in combination with liquid hydrogen, kerosene or methane.