Thread: how to split oxygen from water, and, 99% pure,,, HELP !!

Hello everyone )

My friend is studying a mechanical engineering and he was asked to split Oxygen from water in 99% purity !!
I went to my chemistry prof. and he told me it's a way too complicated and the product can't be this pure... :/

Soo any help please !! )

PeaceOut )

Why is a mechanical engineer being asked to do this?

I assume you would need a multistage process. Electrolysis to extract oxygen from the water. This would initially have a lot of water vapour in it. You could pass it over some sort of desiccant which would absorb most of the water. Then chill it to condense out more. Then liquefy the oxygen and the use fractional distillation to get the required purity.

Note that I am no expert in any of this. It is just some guess work based on various things I have read about in the past.

This might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation

Since this might be homework take a look at Oxygen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia particularly the part about air separation through membranes.

If your friend is being asked to produce this as part of a mechanical enginnering course then there is already a solution to the problem.