Air is made of approx 21% oxygen and 80% nitrogen - so why don't the pump nitrogen into people who are sick?

Answer 1

It's the Oxygen of the atmosphere that we need for our metabolism to work.
Pure Oxygen is often used in Hospitals and 'pumped' in to patients with deficiencies in their lungs and metabolism in order to keep them alive. (in addition to the normal air).
Pure Nitrogen 'pumped' into us would be deadly, as it's an inert gas that would simply poison us, not as an actual poison in itself, as it's 79% of the atmosphere anyway but, by excluding the absorption of Oxygen from our metabolism.

Answer 2

Nitrogen is inert, and not needed for human metabolism, so there would be point in it. Sick people sometimes need more oxygen so that is what they are given. Oxygen in large quantities, though, is a narcotic, so you don't want too much of it! The American space program used pure oxygen in space vehicles, but at a third of atmospheric pressure, so that the partial pressure of oxygen in the vehicle was only about 50% more than in the atmosphere. This avoided the need to carry nitrogen (or any other diluting gas) and allowed the craft to be more lightly constructed.

Answer 3

Pure oxygen is poisonous, but the nitrogen may well be a sort of 'carrier' gas to dilute the oxygen down to safe levels. Otherwise, we would all explode! Nerves carry electricity, hair has static electricity.

Answer 4

we can only take nitrogen in if it is pressurised into the lungs ,however, that is good otherwise we would all die .Deep sea divers sometimes if things go wrong end up with the bends which is when the nitrogen is forced into thier lungs ,they have to be put in a decompression chamber.This answer is quite vague as i dont know all the ins and outs,but if you google,deep seadiving, or the bends ? then you should be able to get more info.

Answer 5

properly our bodies in basic terms soak up oxygen, and the nitrogen we soak up is purely used to help the absorbtion of it. nitrogen and different gasses like argon are not used. we are given organic oxygen by using fact that is believed to be sturdy for the physique.

Answer 6

Because our bodies can't use the nitrogen, only the oxygen.

Answer 7

I'm not very good at chemistry but my maths is alright and i know that 21% + 80% =101% and you can't have more than 100% of something. Unless you are a pepperami if you look on the wrapper it says "Contains 108% pork. Not sure how that works.

Answer 8

they do .when you are ill with breathing problems they give you a slightly larger percentage of oxygen.but it still has nitrogen in it.pure oxygen as silly as it seems can be fatal,our bodies arn`t made to cope with pure oxygen.hope this simplified explanation helps.

Answer 9

Nitrogen is non-reactive and has nothing to do with human metabolism. We need oxygen for cellular respiration.

Answer 10

Oxygen is much more important, we'd die in a few minutes without it. Same goes for cake.