Whats the % of oxygen in regular air?

[DSC]

My sis and I watched the fast and the furious today and I was telling her how "NOS" works (and how lame I thought it was:)) I looked around but I couldn't find the composition of the air we breath VS nitros. Anybody know the % of oxygen in each of those?

[nguyen]

don't know about the air but nos I think is nitrous dioxide which is 1 molecule of nitrogen to 2 oxygen molecule    N2O

[DSC]

I found the specs on air at sea level its 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases. So would nitrous oxide then be 1/3 nitrogen and 2/3 oxygen?

(Edited by DSC at 12:25 am on Jan. 3, 2002)

[allmotorKA]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from nguyen on 12:21 am on Jan. 3, 2002
don't know about the air but nos I think is nitrous dioxide which is 1 molecule of nitrogen to 2 oxygen molecule N2O
</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
N20 is &quot;Nitrous Oxide&quot; not nitrous dioxide...and its 2 Nitrogen atoms bonded with 1 Oxygen atom <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>.
By weight, N20 is 36% oxygen and 64% Nitrogen.

[NoTuchn]

thank you allmotorKA, youre right... its 2 nitrous molecules to 1 oxygen molecules. &nbsp;and theres 21% oxygen in room air.

[White240sx]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from DSC on 12:24 am on Jan. 3, 2002
So would nitrous oxide then be 1/3 nitrogen and 2/3 oxygen?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

Nitrous does more than just add extra oxygen to the cylinder...

[alchemist]

cough, but in life we dont measure things for a chemical reaction by weight.....we do it by stoichiometric ratios....in this case 1:2 is the ratio of Oxygen to Nitrogen....it takes one atom of oxygen to combust with two atoms of hydrogen.....

[dankar]

speaking of oxygen, has anyone heard of routing a oxygen tank to the intake to create more power?

[allmotorKA]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from alchemist on 9:12 am on Jan. 4, 2002
cough, but in life we dont measure things for a chemical reaction by weight.....we do it by stoichiometric ratios....in this case 1:2 is the ratio of Oxygen to Nitrogen....it takes one atom of oxygen to combust with two atoms of hydrogen.....</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Not sure what you mean alchemist. While it is true that the chemical equation of combustion must balance on a molecular level, it must also balance by weight as well. The weights of the products before combustion must equal the weights of the products after combustion.

For example:
CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O
Then if you take their molecular weights you get:
16 + 64 = 44 + 36

So you can see that 16 lb of CH4 requires 64 lb of Oxygen for complete combustion yielding 44 lb of CO2 and 36 lb of Water.

I think in real life, most people would find it easier to measure chemical reactions by weight.

BTW, since we are getting technical here, air is 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen by volume, but is more like 23% oxygen and 77% nitrogen by weight.



(Edited by allmotorKA at 1:45 am on Jan. 5, 2002)

[DSC]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from dankar on 3:23 pm on Jan. 4, 2002
speaking of oxygen, has anyone heard of routing a oxygen tank to the intake to create more power?
</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>Assuming it was liquid like nitrous is in the bottle, it would be way to unstable from what I've heard. I dono how much pressure it takes to get nitrous liquid but I think it takes more to get oxygen to liquid, anybody want to help me out on this?

[allmotorKA]

DSC is right, oxygen is extremely reactive and would not be a safe thing to have in your car. Oxygen by itself is explosive and it doesn't take much to ignite pure oxygen.

[alchemist]

not to be nitpicky, &nbsp;the equation you posted is unbalanced
As a former chemist, &nbsp;going by weight is rather confusing. &nbsp;But with IC engines &nbsp;and ithe inefficiency inherant to them chemistry is useless, &nbsp;physics plays a much bigger role

[allmotorKA]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from alchemist on 6:56 pm on Jan. 4, 2002
not to be nitpicky, the equation you posted is unbalanced...

</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Oops...thanks alchemist for catching that another H20 should have been added to the right side of the equation...I'll edit my previous post.