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 Topic moved: from Dear Auntie BCF... to Random Banter by G (26 Feb 2006 - 01:24)
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MementoMori
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PostPosted: 22:55 - 25 Feb 2006    Post subject: How come... Reply with quote
... you can breathe hydrogen and oxygen in but not water?
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Rookie
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PostPosted: 23:16 - 25 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
Because the alveoli in your lungs can only absorb oxygen is its gaseous form. I'm no biologist, but it may also be because as water, oxygen and hydrogen are bonded, but as a gas, they are seperate elements.

Fish must use a different system to absorb oxygen, which is why they can 'breathe' underwater. There bodies must be able to syphon out the oxygen from the hydrogen.
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haGGard
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PostPosted: 00:15 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
The alveoli have water on their surface though to help the transfer of gases though... (something i actually remember from a-level biology lol)

EDIT: But that thing you said about them being bonded elements sounds like a good point...
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Craggles
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PostPosted: 01:36 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
Rookie wrote:

Fish must use a different system to absorb oxygen, which is why they can 'breathe' underwater. There bodies must be able to syphon out the oxygen from the hydrogen.


The fish do not break the bonds between the Oxygen and Hydrogen atoms in the actual water (H2O), they merely seperate the free Oxygen (O2) molecules which are present in the water.

Even if they could break the bonds, they would probably need to then bond two Oxygen atoms together to get O2. This would take a lot of energy!

This is why it's good to have plants in your fish tank or pond (as plants produce Oxygen)

If the fish seperated the Oxygen from the Hydrogen in the actual water (H20) molecules, fish tanks and ponds would quickly become quite explosive!

Edit: In summary, life in general requires O2 for respiration to happen. Fish have the tools to extract free O2 molecules from water (the fact this is made up of Oxygen bonded to Hydrogen is irrelivant). We have the tools to extract free O2 molecules from air (which is made up of a lot of random gasses). No bonds are broken at this stage.

Of course, I'm no biologist and may be completley off track/wrong!

Craig
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syl
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PostPosted: 03:04 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Re: How come... Reply with quote
MementoMori wrote:
... you can breathe hydrogen and oxygen in but not water?


You never been in a steam room?
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Suzuki
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Joined: 03 May 2005
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PostPosted: 09:06 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
As Craggles said, fish don't breathe water, they breathe oxygen.

Water has dissolved oxygen in it, which they filter out from the water and absorb into their bodies. That's what the little bubble pipe does in all fish tanks - allows more oxygen to dissolve into the water. Plants help too.

Your lungs are designed to absorb oxygen in it's gaseous form. Fish gills are designed to absorb oxygen which is dissolved in water. Completely different system.
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The Old Geeza
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PostPosted: 18:19 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
H2O

2 Hydrogen, 1 Oxygen.

The concentration of oxygen is not high enough in water to be produced as a gas.

Try this...

Put a pan of water on the stove and boil it. Long before the water reaches boiling point you will notice air bubbles accumulating on the inside of the pan and rising through the liquid. But, these air bubbles never reach the surface and there will be no bubbles on the top of the water. This is because the air bubbles don't yet have sufficient energy to overcome the hydrogen, and are absorbed back into the liquid before they can rise to the surface as a gas.

However, once the water is hot enough, the oxygen has sufficient energy (volume) to overcome (separate from) the hydrogen and bubbles start to appear on the top of the water.

Therefore, you could actually breathe under water if you could swim in boiling water, because there would be a high concentration of oxygen air bubbles within the liquid Shocked

Wanna' try it ?

Is any of this making any sense to anyone Question Confused



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stinkwheel
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PostPosted: 18:54 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
The Old Geeza wrote:


Put a pan of water on the stove and boil it. Long before the water reaches boiling point you will notice air bubbles accumulating on the inside of the pan and rising through the liquid. But, these air bubbles never reach the surface and there will be no bubbles on the top of the water. This is because the air bubbles don't yet have sufficient energy to overcome the hydrogen, and are absorbed back into the liquid before they can rise to the surface as a gas.

However, once the water is hot enough, the oxygen has sufficient energy (volume) to overcome (separate from) the hydrogen and bubbles start to appear on the top of the water.

Therefore, you could actually breathe under water if you could swim in boiling water, because there would be a high concentration of oxygen air bubbles within the liquid Shocked

Wanna' try it ?

Is any of this making any sense to anyone Question Confused


Not really. When you boil water it does not split into hydrogen and oxygen, it is changing state from a liquid to a gas, the structure of the water is unaltered. The bubbles you see are gaseous water (steam) rising to the surface but they cool again and return to their liquid state before reaching the surface.

Maybe you are getting mixed up with hydrogen BONDS which are a form of electrical attraction between the oxygen and hydrogen atoms of the water molecules. These occur due to the difference in size between the hydrogen and oxygen, the electyrons spend comparatively longer orbiting the oxygen part making the oxygen slightly negative and the hydrogen slightly positive.

This has the effect of 'sticking' the water molecules together as a liquid. When you apply heat to them, the molecules start to vibrate, they are vibrating enough at 100C to break these hydrogen bonds, the molecules seperate and become a gas (steam).

You can't breath water because it would take a massive amount of energy to break the strong covalent bond between the hydrogen and the oxygen, more than you would gain by using the oxygen to process glucose into energy.

There is also a good mechanical reason, you are asking a pump that normally runs on a gas (your lungs) to pump a liquid. It just doesn't work, gas is compressable, liquid is much less so (if your bike engine draws water in it fluid-locks and bends the crank).

Assuming you weren't going to be scalded by the heat, you could breath pure steam in and out, I doubt you would get any oxygen out of it so you would asphyxiate. As you would if you breathed pure hydrogen.

EDIT: I may be getting hydrogen bonds and van-der Walls forces mixed up but the mechanism I described is correct. It is some time since I did molecular chemistry and water has some peculiar properties as it is.
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The Old Geeza
Back in my day...



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PostPosted: 19:32 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
stinkwheel wrote:
Not really. When you boil water it does not split into hydrogen and oxygen


Never said that, did I ?

stinkwheel wrote:
...it is changing state from a liquid to a gas, the structure of the water is unaltered.


I hope that was what I was talking about Confused

stinkwheel wrote:
The bubbles you see are gaseous water (steam) rising to the surface but they cool again and return to their liquid state before reaching the surface.


No, gaseous water is not steam. Steam is what you see as the gaseous water starts to cool. Gaseous water in it's true form is invisible. I thought that was the basics of what I mentioned. Just because you have elaborated on the subject doesn't change the content I wrote about Confused

stinkwheel wrote:
Maybe you are getting mixed up with hydrogen BONDS which are...


No, I'm not getting mixed up with anything - I hope. I already explained the difference between hydrogen and oxygen concentrates within water in the very first lines of my post.

Now I'm really confused Embarassed


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stinkwheel
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PostPosted: 19:47 - 26 Feb 2006    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
However, once the water is hot enough, the oxygen has sufficient energy (volume) to overcome (separate from) the hydrogen and bubbles start to appear on the top of the water.


You said that, which gave me the impression you thought the hydrogen and oxygen were splitting in the boiling water. At no point does the hydrogen seperate from the oxygen. They are tightly bound and it takes a fair whack of electrical current to split them.

Or were you talking about the oxygen (and chlorine in mains water) that is dissolved in the water being released as you heat it?
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Old Thread Alert!

The last post was made 19 years, 348 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful?
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