What is Nascent Oxygen?

[Raghav Gupta]

What is really Nascent Oxygen?
Like in equation
$2KMnO_4 + 3H_2SO_4--> K_2SO_4 + 2MnSO_4+3H_2O+5[O]$
How a mono atomic O is there. It would be unstable, why it is forming? It should have been $O_2$.
In equation
C₂O₆H₆ + [O]-------> 2CO₂ +3H₂O]x5
How we are supplying monatomic O?

 

[Borek]

Nascent oxygen has much higher reactivity than the oxygen bubbled through the reaction mixture. It doesn't stay nascent for long (you are right about it being converted quick to just O₂), which is why it has to be generated in situ.

 

[Raghav Gupta]

which is why it has to be generated in situ.

What is situ?
I thought early that situ is a kind of reacting mixture but when looked on Wikipedia, found that there is a Latin phrase in situ which means on the premises. But how we create nascent oxygen and why write in reaction if it quickly converts to O₂?

 

[Borek]

Nascent oxygen doesn't convert to O₂ instantly, and if it is generated in the reaction mixture it exists for long enough to react with other things present. Conversion to O₂ competes with other possible reactions. Sometimes they are too slow and presence of the nascent oxygen doesn't matter, sometimes they are fast and they consume the nascent oxygen before it reacts with itself producing just O₂.

 

[Raghav Gupta]

So are there other things like nascent hydrogen, nascent cobalt, nascent chlorine , nascent sodium etc?
I have heard only nascent word in chemistry used with oxygen most of the times and some time with hydrogen.

 

[Borek]

Technically yes, other elements (reagents) can be "nascent". But it is mostly used for hydrogen and oxygen.

Note that it makes sense only when the "nascent" differs in some way and for some reason from the ordinary thing.

 

[Raghav Gupta]

Thank you.:)

 

[Raghav Gupta]

I was expecting some replies from @NascentOxygen . Though I have understood, it would be better that how [O] explains itself.

 

[Borek]

@NascentOxygen is busy learning how to ban those asking difficult questions

 

[Raghav Gupta]

Maybe he would have gone to watch Cricket World Cup 2015 in a stadium as he resides in Australia and World Cup has started in Australia?

 

[NascentOxygen]

So this is why my ears were burning ... people talking about me behind my back!

O₁ is a hyperactive species, unstable and short-lived. For this reason, it has to be generated on site where it is needed.

It is interesting that O₃ has such a strong and characteristic odour when O₂ (along with most colourless elemental gases) has no odour.

 

[Raghav Gupta]

So this is why my ears were burning ... people talking about me behind my back!

O₁ is a hyperactive species, unstable and short-lived. For this reason, it has to be generated on site where it is needed.

Did you not got the alert of tagging when I first tagged you?
It has been a long time since then.

Just curious to know why you have kept the name NascentOxygen? Are you a expert on it?

It is interesting that O₃ has such a strong and characteristic odour when O₂ (along with most colourless elemental gases) has no odour.

Do you know the reason of that?

 

[NascentOxygen]

I first tried to register as NascentHydrogen but the software said that was too many characters, so I settled for my second choice. I'm not an expert on anything, I'm afraid.

Nascent oxygen caught my imagination when I first read about it in an old Inorganic Chemistry textbook in a box of books that a uni graduate gave me when I was in primary school. I think I memorized every page in that book, and I still have it.

I read somewhere* that the strong bleaching action of chlorine bleaching powder is actually attributed to the liberation of monatomic oxygen and it's this which performs the bleaching.

I have no idea why ozone has a pungent odour. But, to me as a child, it made my toy trains seem just unreal.

 

[Raghav Gupta]

Replying after quite a time when I see you in other forums. I think you get many alerts as a mentor?
By the way thanks.

 

[K Kishore]

Can nascent oxygen absorb (react with) CO2, CO & SO2 from atmosphere?