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Why is pure oxygen called O2 when oxygen is an element? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Exactly as the title asks.

Pure oxygen is generally represented as O2 yet oxygen is an element of the periodic table. Why is it O2 and not just O?

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[-] korfuri@sh.itjust.works 145 points 1 year ago

Oxygen is found in 3 forms: nascent (O), molecular (O2, the most common) and ozone (O3). Nascent oxygen, due to its electronic configuration (i.e how many electrons it has and how they're spread out across its electronic shells) is unstable, and tends to quickly form bonds with another O, forming O2. This is also the case e.g. for hydrogen, which is usually found as H2.

You can find O in this form in some environments, in the upper atmosphere there is enough UV radiation to break up O2 into O.

[-] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago

So simply because it's so reactive the most common form is oxygen paired with itself?

[-] ElPussyKangaroo@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

This is an ELI5 explanation. Well done💯💯

[-] xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 1 year ago

Yes, that's right.

[-] megasin1@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

I don't know if anyone is interested but there would be more versions too. Solid oxygen (red oxygen) at high pressure used to be thought of as O4, tetraoxygen aka oxozone. But if you look at it with x-ray crystallography it's O8, octaoxygen. Cool huh

[-] korfuri@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

I had no idea, but yeah that's very cool!

this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023

166 points (100.0% liked)

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