Submarines produce there one oxygen. How is this done. What elements are used to do this and what changes do they go through, and what causes them? please be as tecnical as posable. I like details. Im not stupid.
2006-07-07 15:13:24 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
You can do it through electralysis I think its called where you seperate the hydrogen and oxygen in water by putting electricity into in and having the two poles positive and negative in the water.
2006-07-07 15:15:21 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not to sure how they do it on a sub, but I assume it must be much like a human rated spacecraft. In a spacecraft you don't really "produce" oxygen, you recycle it and add more as needed. To recycle the air there are various forms of scrubbers that can be used to remove the CO2 from the air to make the oxygen content higher (look at the chemicals used in a rebreather system for divers). Spacecraft store breathable air in the form of liquid O2 since the density allows it to be stored much easier dispite the cryogenic cooling requirements. This is processed and heated to be released in the form of room tempature gas that is breathable. There are also ways to extract O2 from H20 which is what I suspect is one of the methods subs would use given the abundance of water around them. However this is a very difficult process and I'm not sure they have the power requirements on board to support such an operations. The excess Hydrogen would have to be vented as well, and subs arn't to stealthy if they are giving offf flammable bubbles all the time. Hope this leads you to a complete answer.
2006-07-07 22:21:33 · answer #2 · answered by RocketScientist 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are several ways to release oxygen from oxygen containing materials. This could be called "making oxygen" although new oxygen atoms are not being made.
The most common method is "electrolysis of water". You can do it yourself by getting a 9 volt battery, and running leads from each terminal into the water, with lots of bare wire in the water. Don't let the wires touch in the water.
Bubbles will form on the wires. The electical energy is splitting the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen bubbles off one lead and oxygen off the other.
There are many other possibilities because so many compounds contain oxygen. For example, sand is silicon oxide, rust is iron oxide.
I believe nuclear submarines use electolysis of water. They have lots of electric power handy and lots of water.
2006-07-07 22:19:25 · answer #3 · answered by enginerd 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Industrial oxygen is made by a cryogenic process: air is liquified, and then evaporated: since liquid nitrogen, oxygen, and the other constituents have different boiling points, they can be separated. I do not know specifically how it is done in a submarine: I suspect it is not by electrolysis, because that would produce hydrogen as well and there is no convenient way to get rid of it.
2006-07-07 23:57:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
the use saltwater, distill it to make pure water. Then they put it in an oxygen generator. THe generator uses voltage to seperate they hydrogen from the oxygen. THe hydrogen is discharged overboard. And yes you can track the submarine by following the hydrogen trail.
Ex-submariner!
2006-07-07 22:19:10 · answer #5 · answered by cpw321cpw 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
One negative side effect of using electrolisis to seperate water into its components of Hydrogen and Oxygen is that it takes more energy to seperate them than the ammount of energy you get from burning Hydrogen. Only nuclear submarines have surplus energy. If you were in a diesel powered submarine it would be infeasable to seperate water for the purpose of burning it.
2006-07-07 22:26:18 · answer #6 · answered by Andy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They must be cycling carbon dioxide through a catalyst to release the oxygen back into the air. You can google it and look it up on Wikipedia.
2006-07-07 22:18:00 · answer #7 · answered by Diane D 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Place mercury-oxide powder in a sealed beaker with a tube leading to a second sealed beaker filled halfway with water, make sure the tube is fully submerged in the water, then use a magnifying glass to heat up the mercury-oxide. the oxygen will collect in the second beaker, be sure to throw the first beaker away after use, it will be contaminated with mercury poison.
2006-07-07 22:23:18 · answer #8 · answered by VILLAIN 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
one easy way to make oxygen is with a fuel cell: water, H(hydrogen)2O(Oxygen) is broken down into separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms; ya kin breathe the oxygen and "burn" the hydrogen as a fuel source. Isn't water cool?!
2006-07-07 22:20:54 · answer #9 · answered by afriendof CLIFFy D 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
remove the hydrogen from water and you are left with oygen
done passing an electrical current through a body of water
for details may i say GOOGLE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
2006-07-07 22:16:57 · answer #10 · answered by JCCCMA 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋