Did you know that the air we breathe isn’t just oxygen,
infact it’s made up of a number of different gases such as
nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, neon and many
others. Each of these gases carry useful properties so
separating them from the air around us is
extremely beneficial.
The process is called fractional distillation and consists of
two steps, the first relies on cooling the air to a very low
temperature (i.e. converting it into a liquid), the second
involves heating it up thus allowing each gas within the
mixture to evaporate at its own boiling point. The key to
success here is that every element within air has its own
unique boiling temperature. As long as we know these
boiling temperatures we know when to collect each gas.
So what are the real world benefits of separating and
extracting these gases? Well liquid oxygen is used to power
rockets, oxygen gas is used in breathing apparatus, nitrogen
is used to make fertilizers, the nitric acid component of
nitrogen is used in explosives.
The other gases all have their own uses too, for example
argon is used to fill up the empty space in most light bulbs
(thanks to its unreactive nature). Carbon dioxide is used in
fire extinguishers and is great for putting out fires in burning
liquids and electrical fires. There really are too many uses to
list but suffice it to say that fractional distillation is an
extremely useful process for humans the world over.
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