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:Liquid oxygen

{{short description|One of the physical forms of elemental oxygen}}

{{About|the liquid form of the element oxygen|the commercial dietary supplement product|Liquid Oxygen (supplement)}}

{{Redirect|LOX||Lox (disambiguation)}}

File:Liquid oxygen in a beaker (cropped and retouched).jpg liquid) in a beaker.]]

File:Liquid oxygen in a magnet 2.jpg

Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen {{chem2|O2}}. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard,{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-liquid-fueled-rocket|title=First liquid-fueled rocket|website=HISTORY|language=en|access-date=2019-03-16}} an application which is ongoing.

Physical properties

Liquid oxygen has a clear cyan color and is strongly paramagnetic: it can be suspended between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet.{{cite book |author1=Moore, John W. |author2=Stanitski, Conrad L. |author3=Jurs, Peter C. |title=Principles of Chemistry: The Molecular Science |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZOm8L9oCwLMC&pg=PA297 |access-date=3 April 2011 |date=21 January 2009 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-495-39079-4 |pages=297–}} Liquid oxygen has a density of {{convert|1.141|kg/L|abbr=on|g/ml}}, slightly denser than liquid water, and is cryogenic with a freezing point of {{convert|54.36|K|abbr=on}} and a boiling point of {{convert|90.19|K|abbr=on}} at {{convert|1|bar|psi|abbr=on|1}}. Liquid oxygen has an expansion ratio of 1:861[https://web.archive.org/web/20080607160832/http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/ehs/handbook/gases/cryosafe.htm Cryogenic Safety]. chemistry.ohio-state.edu.[http://www.lindecanada.com/en/aboutboc/safety/cryogenic_liquids/characteristics.php Characteristics]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218125124/http://www.lindecanada.com/en/aboutboc/safety/cryogenic_liquids/characteristics.php |date=2012-02-18 }}. Lindecanada.com. Retrieved on 2012-07-22. and because of this, it is used in some commercial and military aircraft as a transportable source of breathing oxygen.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

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. Further, if soaked in liquid oxygen, some materials such as coal briquettes, carbon black, etc., can detonate unpredictably from sources of ignition such as flames, sparks or impact from light blows. Petrochemicals, including asphalt, often exhibit this behavior.{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/23004LiquidOxygenReceiptTransferStorageDisposal |title=Liquid Oxygen Receipt, Handling, Storage and Disposal |publisher=USAF Training Film }}

The tetraoxygen molecule (O4) was predicted in 1924 by Gilbert N. Lewis, who proposed it to explain why liquid oxygen defied Curie's law.{{cite journal

|last = Lewis

|first = Gilbert N.

|author-link = Gilbert N. Lewis

|year = 1924

|title = The Magnetism of Oxygen and the Molecule O2

|journal = Journal of the American Chemical Society

|volume = 46

|issue = 9

|pages = 2027–2032

|doi = 10.1021/ja01674a008

}} Modern computer simulations indicate that, although there are no stable O4 molecules in liquid oxygen, O2 molecules do tend to associate in pairs with antiparallel spins, forming transient O4 units.{{cite journal

|last = Oda

|first = Tatsuki

|author2 = Alfredo Pasquarello

|year = 2004

|title = Noncollinear magnetism in liquid oxygen: A first-principles molecular dynamics study

|journal = Physical Review B

|volume = 70

|issue = 134402

|pages = 1–19

|doi = 10.1103/PhysRevB.70.134402

|bibcode = 2004PhRvB..70m4402O

|hdl = 2297/3462

|s2cid = 123535786

|url = https://kanazawa-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=10177

|hdl-access = free

}}

Liquid nitrogen has a lower boiling point at −196 °C (77 K) than oxygen's −183 °C (90 K), and vessels containing liquid nitrogen can condense oxygen from air: when most of the nitrogen has evaporated from such a vessel, there is a risk that liquid oxygen remaining can react violently with organic material. Conversely, liquid nitrogen or liquid air can be oxygen-enriched by letting it stand in open air; atmospheric oxygen dissolves in it, while nitrogen evaporates preferentially.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

The surface tension of liquid oxygen at its normal pressure boiling point is {{convert|13.2|dyn/cm|mN/m|abbr=on}}.J. M. Jurns and J. W. Hartwig (2011). [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110014531.pdf Liquid Oxygen Liquid Acquisition Device Bubble Point Tests With High Pressure LOX at Elevated Temperatures], p. 4.

Uses

File:Liquid oxygen, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan 4.jpg technician transfers liquid oxygen to a Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules aircraft at the Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.]]

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.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

File:Liquid Oxygen.png

Air forces have long recognized the strategic importance of liquid oxygen, both as an oxidizer and as a supply of gaseous oxygen for breathing in hospitals and high-altitude aircraft flights. In 1985, the USAF started a program of building its own oxygen-generation facilities at all major consumption bases.Arnold, Mark. [https://web.archive.org/web/20170315000548/http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA581789 1U.S. Army Oxygen Generation System Development]. RTO-MP-HFM-182. dtic.mil{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LVfaBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA150|title=Advances in Cryogenic Engineering: Proceedings of the 1957 Cryogenic Engineering Conference, National Bureau of Standards Boulder, Colorado, August 19–21, 1957|author=Timmerhaus, K. D.|date=8 March 2013|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-1-4684-3105-6|pages=150–}}

= In rocket propellant =

{{see also|Liquid rocket propellant}}

File:Liquid Oxygen (LOX) ball at the CCAFS SLC-40.jpg]]

Liquid oxygen is the most common cryogenic liquid oxidizer propellant for spacecraft rocket applications, usually in combination with liquid hydrogen, kerosene or methane.{{cite news |last=Belluscio|first=Alejandro G. |title=SpaceX advances drive for Mars rocket via Raptor power |url=http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/03/spacex-advances-drive-mars-rocket-raptor-power/ |access-date=March 13, 2014 |newspaper=NASAspaceflight.com |date=March 7, 2014 }}{{cite news|last=Todd |first=David |title=Musk goes for methane-burning reusable rockets as step to colonise Mars |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2012/11/musk-goes-for-methane-burning.html |access-date=November 22, 2012 |newspaper=FlightGlobal Hyperbola |date=November 20, 2012 |quote=‘We are going to do methane,’ Musk announced as he described his future plans for reusable launch vehicles including those designed to take astronauts to Mars within 15 years, ‘The energy cost of methane is the lowest and it has a slight Isp (Specific Impulse) advantage over Kerosene’ said Musk adding, ‘and it does not have the pain in the ass factor that hydrogen has.’ ... SpaceX's initial plan will be to build a lox/methane rocket for a future upper stage codenamed Raptor. ... The new Raptor upper stage engine is likely to be only the first engine in a series of lox/methane engines. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121128070948/http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2012/11/musk-goes-for-methane-burning.html |archive-date=November 28, 2012 }}

Liquid oxygen was used in the first liquid fueled rocket. The World War II V-2 missile also used liquid oxygen under the name A-Stoff and Sauerstoff. In the 1950s, during the Cold War both the United States' Redstone and Atlas rockets, and the Soviet R-7 Semyorka used liquid oxygen. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, the ascent stages of the Apollo Saturn rockets, and the Space Shuttle main engines used liquid oxygen.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

As of 2025, many active rockets use liquid oxygen:

History

  • By 1845, Michael Faraday had managed to liquefy most gases then known to exist. Six gases, however, resisted every attempt at liquefaction[http://www.scienceclarified.com/Co-Di/Cryogenics.html Cryogenics]. Scienceclarified.com. Retrieved on 2012-07-22. and were known at the time as "permanent gases". They were oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and nitric oxide.
  • In 1877, Louis Paul Cailletet in France and Raoul Pictet in Switzerland succeeded in producing the first droplets of liquid air.{{cite book |last1=Papanelopoulou |first1=Faidra |title=Louis Paul Cailletet, the Liquefaction of Oxygen and the Emergence of an `In-Between Discipline': Low-Temperature Research |date=2015 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-319-14553-2 |pages=9-22 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14553-2_2}}
  • In 1883, Polish professors Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski produced the first measurable quantity of liquid oxygen.{{Citation

| last =Kubbinga

| first =Henk

| year =2010

| title = A Tribute to Wróblewski and Olszewski

| journal =Europhysics News

| volume =41

| issue =4

| pages =21-24

| doi =10.1051/epn/2010402

| url =https://www.europhysicsnews.org/10.1051/epn/2010402/pdf

| archive-url =

| archive-date =

}}

See also

{{Portal|Chemistry|Science}}

{{Commons category|Liquid oxygen}}

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References

{{Reflist|30em}}

Further reading

  • {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Oxygen |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Oxidizers |publisher=De Gruyter |last= Schmidt |first=Eckart W. |date=2022 |pages=3053–3218 |doi=10.1515/9783110750294-025 |isbn=978-3-11-075029-4}}

Category:Rocket oxidizers

Category:Cryogenics

Category:Oxygen

Category:Industrial gases

Category:Liquids

Category:1883 in science