What Is Ozone?
While much of the news about ozone is bad - the depletion of the ozone layer and pollution - it remains an incredibly powerful tool when used properly.
Ozone is a natural variant of the air we breathe that we usually don't find very much at ground level.
When we do, it is often in very low concentrations (generally about.
6 parts per billion) because ozone (O3) decomposes into standard oxygen (O2) in about a half an hour.
However, when we do find it, there are several important things to know.
First of all, ozone gas is relatively easy to identify with its pale blue tint and sharp smell like chlorine bleach.
Which is good, because at high volumes, it can destroy organic materials such as latex and plastic, kill lung tissues, and at extremely high amounts, detonate spontaneously.
However, even in lower levels that aren't humanly identifiable, ozone is a major pollutant, causing crops to whither, rubbers to crack, metals to rust, and long-term respiratory problems.
This is all because ozone is a very reactive compound and will, in chemistry terms, oxidize almost anything.
Natural rubber will crack with it, iron and steel will rust away, and most plants and animals will deteriorate.
This pollutant form mostly comes from interactions between vehicle and factory emissions with the air.
This makes large cities, especially those with heavy industrial districts, susceptible to ozone-laden smog.
While this makes this pollution worst for first-world countries, these are the same countries which have campaigns to clean it up.
In the U.
S.
the E.
P.
A has developed cleaning systems as well as the Air Quality Index in order to clean what they can and inform about what they can't.
This all said, not all ozone is bad ozone.
In the upper atmosphere contains the "ozone layer," which is three to ten times the concentration that it is on the ground.
This serves to protect the earth from UV light.
While air can absorb some of this, ozone absorbs much more and is a natural in preventing big-picture things like global warming and even smaller issues like sunburns.
Not all ozone is unintentionally made or already in our atmosphere, though.
There are several excellent methods that we have discovered and employ in making the substance using modern technology and the ambient air.
However, when used industrially and commercially, it must be produced on site due to it's fast decomposition rate, so ozone producing machines are available in all varieties and sizes.
In industry, it's mostly used as a disinfectant, deodorizer, chemical manufacturer, and other cleaners.
Even within this, uses range from sanitizing swimming pools to washing fruits and vegetables to adhering inks to plastics.
In homes and offices, one can find ozone put to use cleaning hot tubs and aquariums, spare rooms and dirty laundry.
In short, ozone is a pollutant when created unintentionally, a shield when found naturally, and a useful cleaning and synthesis product when created consciously.
While it continues to be a problem to nearly every factory, farm, and house, it can also be used as a tool by nearly the exact same people, and even barring that, it is an essential part to our atmosphere and, in the right amounts, our ecological health.
Ozone is a natural variant of the air we breathe that we usually don't find very much at ground level.
When we do, it is often in very low concentrations (generally about.
6 parts per billion) because ozone (O3) decomposes into standard oxygen (O2) in about a half an hour.
However, when we do find it, there are several important things to know.
First of all, ozone gas is relatively easy to identify with its pale blue tint and sharp smell like chlorine bleach.
Which is good, because at high volumes, it can destroy organic materials such as latex and plastic, kill lung tissues, and at extremely high amounts, detonate spontaneously.
However, even in lower levels that aren't humanly identifiable, ozone is a major pollutant, causing crops to whither, rubbers to crack, metals to rust, and long-term respiratory problems.
This is all because ozone is a very reactive compound and will, in chemistry terms, oxidize almost anything.
Natural rubber will crack with it, iron and steel will rust away, and most plants and animals will deteriorate.
This pollutant form mostly comes from interactions between vehicle and factory emissions with the air.
This makes large cities, especially those with heavy industrial districts, susceptible to ozone-laden smog.
While this makes this pollution worst for first-world countries, these are the same countries which have campaigns to clean it up.
In the U.
S.
the E.
P.
A has developed cleaning systems as well as the Air Quality Index in order to clean what they can and inform about what they can't.
This all said, not all ozone is bad ozone.
In the upper atmosphere contains the "ozone layer," which is three to ten times the concentration that it is on the ground.
This serves to protect the earth from UV light.
While air can absorb some of this, ozone absorbs much more and is a natural in preventing big-picture things like global warming and even smaller issues like sunburns.
Not all ozone is unintentionally made or already in our atmosphere, though.
There are several excellent methods that we have discovered and employ in making the substance using modern technology and the ambient air.
However, when used industrially and commercially, it must be produced on site due to it's fast decomposition rate, so ozone producing machines are available in all varieties and sizes.
In industry, it's mostly used as a disinfectant, deodorizer, chemical manufacturer, and other cleaners.
Even within this, uses range from sanitizing swimming pools to washing fruits and vegetables to adhering inks to plastics.
In homes and offices, one can find ozone put to use cleaning hot tubs and aquariums, spare rooms and dirty laundry.
In short, ozone is a pollutant when created unintentionally, a shield when found naturally, and a useful cleaning and synthesis product when created consciously.
While it continues to be a problem to nearly every factory, farm, and house, it can also be used as a tool by nearly the exact same people, and even barring that, it is an essential part to our atmosphere and, in the right amounts, our ecological health.
