Difference between revisions of "Ozone"

Revision as of 20:32, 26 October 2015

Ozone or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula O₃. It is an allotrope of oxygen, much less stable than the common diatomic allotrope O₂.

Properties

Chemical

Ozone is a powerful oxidant, much more powerful than dioxygen.

Ozone will oxidize most metals (except noble metals) to oxides of the metals in their highest oxidation state. It will also oxidize nitrogen oxides up until dinitrogen pentoxide

NO + O₃ → NO₂ + O₂

NO₂ + O₃ → NO₃· + O₂

NO₃· + NO₂ → N₂O₅

Solid nitronium perchlorate can be made from NO₂, ClO₂, and O₃:

2 NO₂ + 2 ClO₂ + 2 O₃ → 2 NO₂ClO₄ + O₂

It will also oxidize sulphides to sulphates and sulfur and sulfur oxides to sulfuric acid in the presence of water.

PbS + 4 O₃ → PbSO₄ + 4 O₂

S + H₂O + O₃ → H₂SO₄

Ozone reacts with carbon to form carbon dioxide, even at room temperature:

C + 2 O₃ → CO₂ + 2 O₂

This is useful when cleaning glassware that have traces of carbon (such as graphite) that are hard to clean.

Ozone does not react with ammonium salts, but it will oxidize ammonia to ammonium nitrate:

2 NH₃ + 4 O₃ → NH₄NO₃ + 4 O₂ + H₂O

Ozone also reacts with organic compounds to form various substances.

Physical

Ozone is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell commonly described as that of copy machines, due to commercial copy machine producing small amounts. Some people describe it as "electric", reminiscent of bumper cars from amusement parks. Although electric discharges do produce small amounts of ozone, they also produce nitrous oxide gases, altering the ozone smell. Its liquid form is dark blue and it forms a violet-black solid at extremely low temperatures. It is also unstable at high concentrations, decaying to ordinary diatomic oxygen. It has a varying length half-life, in a sealed chamber at standard conditions, with fan moving the gas, ozone has a half-life of a day.

Availability

Ozone is unstable, so it must be generated in situ.

Preparation

Ozone can be generated from electric discharges in air. Ozone generators work on this principle. However such method also generates nitrous oxides, as air is 78% nitrogen. Feed pure oxygen from a Kipp's apparatus into the generator to produce more ozone and no nitrous oxides. A compressed oxygen tube can also be used.

Another method of generating ozone is decomposition of various peroxide compounds in acidic solution. An example is decomposition of barium peroxide in sulfuric acid.

Projects

• Making sulfuric acid
• Ozonides synthesis
• Make nitronium perchlorate

Handling

Safety

Ozone at concentrations higher than 0.1 ppm in air is dangerous, as it will oxidize organic material indiscriminately. Ground level ozone can harm lung function and irritate the respiratory system.^[1] Ozone reacts with compounds lining the lungs to form specific, cholesterol-derived metabolites that are thought to facilitate the build-up and pathogenesis of atherosclerotic plaques (a form of heart disease).^[2]

Ozone will react with organic materials to form ozonides, that are explosive.

Storage

Ozone will decompose after several hours and has to be made in situ. Cryogenic ozone can be stored (cold causes it to become more stable) but even that is dangerous because liquid ozone is a hair-trigger explosive.

Disposal

Ozone will decompose to normal oxygen in open air.

See also

• Oxygen, for a more general discussion of the element
• Singlet oxygen

References

1. ↑ http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/10028156.html
2. ↑ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891584904003454

Relevant Sciencemadness threads

• Does anyone know how to make Ozone generator???
• Making an Ozone Generator