Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Jon Vermillion on 17/09/2011 05:30:02

Title: When water is split, does the oxygen form ozone?
Post by: Jon Vermillion on 17/09/2011 05:30:02

Jon Vermillion asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Hello from the San Juan Islands about 60 north of Seattle.

I have questions about ozone.

1. When water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, does the oxygen stay as ozone or does it form as 02?

2. Why is it, if you touch your finger to ozone generator, your fingers will now smell very metallic and also if ozone is very unstable why does the smell linger on your skin for a hour or more?

3. If you concentrate ozone it looks purple ..... Why?

Thanks
I enjoy your show by podcast (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/).

Jon Vermillion

What do you think?

Title: When water is split, does the oxygen form ozone?
Post by: RD on 16/09/2011 21:43:26

Quote from: Jon Vermillion on 16/09/2011 21:30:03

Why is it, if you touch your finger to ozone generator, your fingers will now smell very metallic and also if ozone is very unstable why does the smell linger on your skin for a hour or more?

You may be smelling nitric acid ...
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=24356.msg265241#msg265241

Is it like horse pee ? ...

Quote

Nitric acid fumes have a very distinctive and irritating smell often described as being similar to horse urine. Increase ventilation if you can smell the fumes (the scent threshold for nitric acid fumes is 0.29 to 0.98 ppm

http://www.ehow.com/how_8772027_detect-nitric-acid-gas.html

Title: When water is split, does the oxygen form ozone?
Post by: Bored chemist on 17/09/2011 17:40:27

1 not much, though some ozone is produced by some processes.
2 The smell isn't due to ozone, it's due to products of the reactions between your fingers and the ozone.
3 it looks purple because it is purple. It has an excited electronic state a little above the ground state and yellow/ green light has enough energy to raise electrons from the ground state to the excited state. Since it absorbs yellow/green light, it's purple.