Creating oxygen free environment

[pyroengineer]

Hello,

Say I have air circulating in a low pressure loop at 200C, and there are two openings; one for introducing steam and another that allows excess gases to exit. Through experimentation, I know that purging this loop with steam will bring down the oxygen content of this loop to 0% (unless the steam is interfering with my O2 sensor). How is this physically occurring?

Would I be correct in figuring that the partial pressure of steam being greater then nitrogen or oxygen will purge the component of air with the lowest partial pressure (CO2 and O2)?

Thanks

 

[mfb]

It depends on your setup (do you have a sketch?). If the gases mix well in your volume, all three components will go out with their respective fractions in the mixture. You can reduce the oxygen level, but it will get harder the lower the level is. If the gases don't mix well, it probably needs a detailed flow analysis.