LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Argon: Oxygen
built 289 days ago
Argon constitutes 0.934% by volume and 1.29% by mass of the Earth's atmosphere, and air is the primary raw material used by industry to produce purified argon products. Argon is isolated from air by fractionation, most commonly by cryogenic fractional distillation, a process that ... produces purified nitrogen, oxygen, neon, krypton and xenon.[8]
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Argon was discovered by Sir William Ramsay, a Scottish chemist, and Lord Rayleigh, an English chemist, in 1894. Argon makes up 0.93% of the earth's atmosphere, making it the third most abundant gas. Argon is obtained from the air as a byproduct of the production of oxygen and nitrogen.
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Operation: The extinguishing effect takes place when oxygen is displaced in the air by Argon. This is known as the suffocation effect because the oxygen in the air falls below the level necessary for combustion to occur. In most cases, the fire will go out when oxygen levels fall to 13.8 vol%. After the flame is extinguished, it may be necessary to maintain the concentration for a while until hot surfaces and embers have cooled down in order to avoid re-ignition. The extinguishing agent argon is stored as a compressed gas in high-pressure steel cylinders.
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