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Photosynthetic oxygen evolution is the fundamental process by which oxygen is generated in the earth's biosphere. The reaction is part of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of green algae and plants. It utilizes the energy of light to split a water molecule into its protons and electrons for ...
Significant concentrations of oxygen were just one of the prerequisites for the evolution of complex life. [9] Models based on uniformitarian principles (i.e. extrapolating present-day ocean dynamics into deep time) suggest that such a concentration was only reached immediately before metazoa first appeared in the fossil record. [9]
The alkali metals and alkali earth metals all react spontaneously with oxygen when exposed to dry air to form oxides, and form hydroxides in the presence of oxygen and water. As a result, none of these elements is found in nature as a free metal. Caesium is so reactive with oxygen that it is used as a getter in vacuum tubes. Although solid ...
The Great Oxidation Event (GOE) or Great Oxygenation Event, also called the Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Revolution, Oxygen Crisis or Oxygen Holocaust, [2] was a time interval during the Earth's Paleoproterozoic era when the Earth's atmosphere and shallow seas first experienced a rise in the concentration of free oxygen. [3]
The name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, who first recognized oxygen as a chemical element and correctly characterized the role it plays in combustion. Common industrial uses of oxygen include production of steel , plastics and textiles , brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals , rocket propellant , oxygen ...
There are several known allotropes of oxygen. The most familiar is molecular oxygen (O 2), present at significant levels in Earth's atmosphere and also known as dioxygen or triplet oxygen. Another is the highly reactive ozone (O 3). Others are: Atomic oxygen (O 1), a free radical. Singlet oxygen (O * 2), one of two metastable states of ...
The oxygen cycle demonstrates how free oxygen is made available in each of these regions, as well as how it is used. The oxygen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle of oxygen atoms between different oxidation states in ions, oxides, and molecules through redox reactions within and between the spheres/reservoirs of the planet Earth. [1]
In thermolysis, water molecules split into hydrogen and oxygen. For example, at 2,200 °C (2,470 K; 3,990 °F) about three percent of all H 2 O are dissociated into various combinations of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, mostly H, H 2, O, O 2, and OH. Other reaction products like H 2 O 2 or HO 2 remain minor. At the very high temperature of 3,000 ...