Explain how you would prove that air contains oxygen and carbon dioxide
Answers
Answer:
So there is something in the air that makes fire possible, and when it is not there, fire cannot burn. ... Carbon dioxide is a bit more challenging, both because it is less reactive and also because there is very little of it in the air. But you could grow two identical plants, one in a bell jar, the other one in open air.
Explanation:
Create a bell jar, an environment full of ordinary air that you can see and observe. Put in sawdust and find a way to ignite it. Put in a good lot. Try to burn it. Put in enough so that it does not all burn. Then burn the same amount of sawdust in the room, without a bell jar. This will show you that there is something in the air that is consumed by fire. If you have access to a supply of bottled nitrogen compressed gas, evacuate the bell jar and fill it with nitrogen. Try to burn sawdust in a pure nitrogen atmosphere. You can’t. So there is something in the air that makes fire possible, and when it is not there, fire cannot burn. This is the type of experiment that was originally done to discover oxygen, and oxygen was the name given to the part of air that allows things to burn.
Carbon dioxide is a bit more challenging, both because it is less reactive and also because there is very little of it in the air. But you could grow two identical plants, one in a bell jar, the other one in open air. Eventually, the plant in the bell jar will start to die from lack of CO2. Or you could breathe in and out of a paper bag. You will need to pant. This is because the CO2 is building up in the bag, and the oxygen is getting less. Or you could cool air below 110 degrees Fahrenheit (80C) and see the dry ice, the frozen carbon dioxide, that forms.