Briefly, what do I need to know about ozone in an emergency situation?
Ozone is a colourless gas at low concentrations which becomes blue as the concentration increases. It has a characteristic odour similar to freshly mown hay. Ozone will not burn but it is a powerful oxidizer. Contact with combustible materials may cause fire or explosion at high concentrations. It is dangerously reactive and unstable at room temperature. It may decompose violently, under conditions of shock or elevated temperatures and can react violently or explosively with many chemicals. Ozone is considered to be very toxic and may be fatal if inhaled. The health effects of ozone are that it causes lung injury and these effects may not be immediate.
Where do you find ozone?
Ozone is used for the purification and disinfection of drinking water; for high purity water systems (e.g. bottling and canning plants); disinfection and odour control of industrial and municipal wastewater and sewage, swimming pools and spas, and industrial processes; bleaching agent; food preservative; in cold storage rooms, brewery cellars, hotel and hospital air ducts and air conditioning systems; in organic synthesis; medical applications; aquatic oxidant; and production of high purity silver.
Ozone is a natural component of the Earth's stratosphere (1-10 parts per million or ppm). Ozone can be produced from electric arc welding, electroplating, mercury vapour lamps, X-ray generators, photoengraving, photocopying machines, electrostatic air cleaners, high voltage electrical equipment and indoor ultraviolet sources.
What should I know about the composition and purity of ozone?
Ozone is generated on-site, at its point of use, because of the difficulty, hazards and high cost of transporting ozone and because it is not easily stored. Ozone can be generated by a variety of methods, the most common of which involves the dissociation of molecular oxygen electrically (silent discharge) or photochemically (ultraviolet irradiation). Excess ozone is destroyed on-site. Gaseous ozone can be adsorbed by porous solid substrates, such as silica gel, and is often used in this form in organic synthesis. Trace amounts of oxygen accumulate slowly with ozone decomposition.
What are some synonyms for ozone?
Ozone is also known as triatomic oxygen, and trioxygen.
With so many names for ozone, is there a unique identifier for this chemical?
Its CAS Registry Number is 10028-15-6. This number is assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) in the United States and is used as a unique identifier number world-wide.
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