This experiment is for advanced students.


This time we’re going to use a lot of equipment… really break out all the chemistry stuff. We’ll need all this stuff to generate oxygen with potassium permanganate (KMNO4). We will work with this toxic chemical and we will be careful…won’t we?


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4 Responses to “Generating Oxygen”

  1. Oops! There’s a mistake in that equation. That first O2 should be HEAT not O2. And then it balances… sorry! I’ll fix that…

  2. Hi,

    Me and my dad did this experiment and we were a little confused by the equation, 2KMnO4 + O2 –> K2MnO4 + MnO2 + O2, the oxygen seems imbalanced. Is oxygen an input in this experiment?

    Thank You.

  3. The oxygen (O2) generated in the test tube is the same as the O2 in the air around us. The difference is the amount. The air we breathe is made up of many different gasses including nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. Of all those gases, O2 makes up on only 20.9% of our atmosphere (at sea level). The gas generated by this chemical reaction is pure O2. Therefore, the gas that is displacing the water in the test tube is almost 100% O2.

  4. What’s the difference between the oxygen you harvested, to the oxygen around us? Is that pure oxygen in the bottle?