Chemguide

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Pearson's Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry books



Oxygen and the Air

Video clips and animations

Percentage of oxygen in the air

Using hot copper and the syringe experiment to measure the percentage of oxygen in the air. You will probably want to pause the video quite often to give you time to read the labels which appear and disappear. YouTube.

Simple reactions of oxygen

Making oxygen from hydrogen peroxide and using it to relight a glowing splint and burn iron wool. Oxygen is, of course, invisible. The gas you can see is steam (mixed with the oxygen) produced because of the amount of heat liberated when hydrogen peroxide decomposes. YouTube

Burning sulfur in oxygen

Simple video of sulfur burning in oxygen. Notice the very, very small flame in air. The video names the product as sulfur(IV) oxide, which is the formal chemical name for it, but it is more usually called sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide is a colourless gas. The creamy "gas" that you see during the reaction is actually some sulfur which vaporises and then condenses as a very, very fine powder. YouTube

Burning magnesium in air and oxygen

This is a German video showing that magnesium burns much more intensely in oxygen than in air (German = luft). YouTube

Burning graphite and diamond in oxygen

Video clip from the Royal Society Christmas lectures 2012 showing that both graphite and diamond burn to form carbon dioxide. YouTube

The lab preparation of carbon dioxide

This shows how you can prepare a few test tubes of carbon dioxide in the lab using marble chips and dilute hydrochloric acid. YouTube


Other useful or interesting sites

Acid rain

This is from the excellent US Environmental Protection Agency site. There is a mass of information including some experimental work.


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© Jim Clark 2017