Water, oxygenated or something, explain.

Question

Ive heard it said that if you boil a kettle more than once that it is bad and it de oxengenates that water, how is that possible surly water is just H2O if you remove oxygen it aint water anymore?

Answer 1

It means oxygen that is dissolved in the water, which is how fish get their oxygen. Boiling water a lot would drive off the dissolved oxygen. I don't know why that would be "bad" though, unless you are a fish!

Answer 2

De-oxygenating the water isn't removing the oxygen from the hydrogen to destroy the water molecules.  De-oxygenating the water is removing the free oxygen molecules suspended in the water; this is what fish extract with their gills.

De-oxygenating water won't hurt humans, you can safely boil it time an again and drink it.  However, if you want to put it in your fish tank then you could possibly kill them by causing them hypoxia.

According to Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(en...

"Hypoxia or oxygen depletion is a phenomenon that occurs in aquatic environments as dissolved oxygen becomes reduced in concentration to a point detrimental to aquatic organisms living in the system."

I don't know if boiling water will actually remove the oxygen that is normally suspended in the water, it depends on how you cool it and return it to its liquid state.

Aerating is the process where you add oxygen to water and a simple water fall can do that.

According to Wikipedia:

"Aerated water is, correctly speaking, distilled water to which purified air is added to improve its flavor....

Wave action on the shores of large bodies of water can provide aeration of the water in the vicinity, thus providing enhanced oxygenation which can benefit various aquatic lifeforms."

So if you directly condense the water and don't allow agitation that could aerate it then you will indeed reduce the amount of free oxygen in the water and so it would not be suitable for fish.