Oxygen essays

The atomic weight of oxygen is 15.9994.Oxygen composes 21 percent by volume or 23.15 percent by weight of the atmosphere; 85.8 percent by weight of the oceans and, as a constituent of most rocks and minerals, 46.7 percent by weight of the solid crust of the earth. Oxygen comprises 60 percent of the human body.

Oxygen comprises 60 percent of the human body. It is a constituent of all living tissues; almost all plants and animals, including all humans, require oxygen, in the free or combined state, to maintain life.3

Humans along with other mammals require oxygen necessarily. They need it to carry out their daily tasks and smooth functioning of the body. Even the cells in our body need oxygen to function properly. All the living beings inhale oxygen in their lungs for proper respiration.

Oxygen was discovered in 1774 by the British chemist Joseph Priestley and, independently, by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele; it was shown to be an elemental gas by the French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in his classic experiments on combustion.