Joseph priestley and karl william scheele independently discovered oxygen. Although Calbi Joseph discovered it a year earlier, many people still think that Joseph discovered it first because he published the paper first. Priestley supported the phlogiston theory. The English name of oxygen is "Dioxygen", which was named by lavoisier in 1777. It is pointed out that substances can only burn in oxygen-containing air, and the increase of the weight of combustion products is equal to the oxygen lost in the air, thus overthrowing all phlogiston theories and formally establishing the law of conservation of mass. Another view is that oxygen was first discovered by China.

Oxygen means "acid element" in Greek, and the name was given by French chemist lavoisier, because lavoisier mistakenly thought that all acids contained this new gas. Now the name of oxygen in Japanese is still "acid element". Influenced by the Japanese occupation of Taiwan Province, Taiwan Province people also use the Japanese pronunciation of "acid element" to call oxygen.

The Chinese name of oxygen was named after Xu Shou of Qing Dynasty. He believes that human survival is inseparable from oxygen, so he named it "nourishing qi" or "nourishing qi quality". Later, in order to unify, he changed the word "nourishment" into "oxygen" and called it "oxygen".

manufacture

Lavoisier once heated mercury in the air to make red mercuric oxide powder, and then heated mercuric oxide to get pure oxygen.

2Hg+O2 = =△= = 2 HgO； 2 HgO ==△== 2 Hg + O2

Potassium chlorate crystals and manganese dioxide (catalyst) are usually mixed and heated in the laboratory to prepare:

2 KClO3 ==MnO2== 2 KCl + 3 O2↑

Or using manganese dioxide to catalyze the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to generate oxygen;

2 H2O2 ==MnO2== 2 H2O + O2↑

Or heating and decomposing with potassium permanganate to generate potassium permanganate, manganese dioxide and oxygen;

2 KMnO4 ==△== K2MnO4 + O2↑ + MnO2

In industry, oxygen is produced by separating liquid air from electrolytic water:

2 H2O == power on = = 2h2 =+O2 =

use

The uses of oxygen include iron and steel smelting, plastic and textile manufacturing, rocket propellant and oxygen therapy. It is also used to sustain life in airplanes, submarines, spaceships and diving.