What's in scuba tanks?

Question

What's in scuba tanks?

Answer 1

you never know unless you test it and verify it yourself.  Never take someones word for it (unless from a repitable dive shop, etc) Regular recreational tanks are filled with compressed air that may contain around 79% nitrogen and the rest oxygen. Then you get into the nitrox tanks that normally have 32 - 36% oxygen and the rest oxygen. Thus a reason to test it so you can plan your dive according to the proper tables. Of course some divers have 100%oxygen for decon stops etc, where others have a trimix and then you start getting real detailed. So if you don't know whats in it for sure, I wouldn't dive it.

Answer 2

Scuba stands for--- self contained underwater breathin apparatus

They are used primarily for under water diving, & are filled with compressed air.  Firefighters use a different version, but are also filled with compressed air

Answer 3

For most recreational diving, it is just compressed air (Nitrogen: 78.084 % and Oxygen:  20.9476 %).

Answer 4

Breathing gas in a scuba tank can vary in content.

Typically, unless the diver has been trained for using other blends, it will contain filtered, de humidified plain old air. What you are breathing now, at a tank pressure of about 3,000 psi in an aluminum 80 cu ft tank.

If the diver has been trained for it, a tank can also contain two other mixes, in various concentrations of O2. Nitrox or Tri Mix.

Nitrox is typically an O2 enriched blend of anywhere between  32% - 40% of O2, the rest nitrogen and trace gasses. Think of it as "super air". The lesser nitrogen allows for a longer bottom time before straying into decompression at the depth it's destined to be used at. That's good. The bad part is that the higher % of O2 actually limits how deep you can go. On air, you can dive to 130 before noticing any effects, like narcosis, for most divers. On a 32% or higher nitrox mix, this is deadly. Oxygen toxicity kicks in. You convulse, spit out the reg and it's lights out. It can take just one breath. Instead of being a little high ( like on "normal air"), you're a corpse.

Tri mix is the opposite in this regard. It's a hypoxic mix (less O2 than normal air). It's made up of helium, nitrogen and oxygen. In the case of tri mix, you have 3 gasses to mix, not the two in Nitrox. A tri mix blend can contain as little as 6% O2. If you breathed it on the surface, you'd be on the floor in under 30 seconds. At a depth of 150 ft plus, you're fine. Little O2 tox issues, low nitrogen count ( less deco than if using normal air) and longer bottom time. As I pointed out however, this is all mix dependent. You have 3 gasses to manipulate when filling the cylinder. The final, anaylized mix , when consulted with a tri mix dive planner lets you know the constraints of the dive or if you know beforehand what your planned dive will be and don't stray from it, you can mix the tank according to your plan.

Edit: This is to still trying.

There are some errors in your answer. You'd also best explain the 100% O2 deco as well, before some suicidally inclined person tries it at depth. Same with the tri mix hypoxic at shallow deco.

Answer 5

Just like they said it's compressed air. It's also used in a lot of paintball guns.

Answer 6

It is just like the air you breathe on the surface but compressed and filtered to remove impurities.