Summary:
My science project is to create an invention. My group decided to create something to help carbon monoxide poisoning victims. My friend wants to create a machine that stores solid oxygen and melts it so that it turns into a gas. Then, the box gives off a spark to set off a chemical reaction so that the oxygen and carbon monoxide react. Then, this reaction would create carbon dioxide and oxygen. My idea was to create a chemical thing that could break apart the carbon monoxide inside and around the person’s body and lungs.
Any ideas? I’m absolutely desperate because this is my year-project for science.
This is a half ass wag from a mediocre chemistry student but you could tell someone to take-in chemicals that are strong field ligands in the hope that these strong field ligands will displace the carbon monoxide from hemoglobin. Of course that is like trading one poison for another but its a brainstorming start. if you need a better explanation about high spin/low spin chemistry I can help but I honestly don’t know why CO bonds so strongly with hemoglobin. I thought CO was a weak field ligand and as a result would have a weak bond with hemoglobin, there must be other chemical factors.
At the very least going into detail about low spin/high spin metallo-ligand bonding should earn you some ‘I kinda know what i’m talking about’ points in school. Or you could just do a hemoglobin transplant or something along those lines.
Here is a total WAG. Naturally it wouldn’t work in the real world but here you go to get you started.
Give someone a drug that is 2 chemicals, a strong field ligand and another chemical that binds strongly to carbon monoxide. Hopefully the mixture will remove CO from hemoglobin and neutralize it by bonding it to the new chemical. I don’t know what would bind strongly to carbon monoxide, but if your grader isn’t an experienced chemist neither would they.
After you displace the carbon monoxide and neutralize it, you have to remove the strong field ligands from hemoglobin. I don’t know how to do this, I do know cyanide is a strong field ligand and it can be removed by amyl nitrate. Whether cyanide is deadly because of its strong/weak field effects on hemoglobin or something else I do not know. But if you are lucky and it is, then good for you. Maybe you can go into some bullshit about manipulating the shape of hemoglobin to change its orbitals and change the stabilization energy, resulting in a weaker ligand-iron bond which will make it easier to remove the ligand. Then neutrilize the strong field ligand with another chemical, and you should be ok.
ligand = thing bonded to iron, which is a major component of hemoglobin.
its pure bullshit from a relatively inexperienced chemist but it sounds good on paper.
You might start by looking up some references on the use of hyperbaric oxygen in carbon monoxide poisoning
You might also want to find information on the affinity of hemoglobin for CO, and O[sub]2[/sub].
Crudely put: carbon monoxide is dangerous because it binds hemoglobin more tightly (avidly) than oxygen does. The stuff that’s poisoning you is bound inside you. You’d turn the patient to a Donner Party Roast.
In more paractical terms, forget working with “solid oxygen” – it freezes at -218.4 Celsius (-361.1 Fahrenheit) at room air pressure. Liquid oxygen is readily available, and widely used in medicine (after expansion to gas, and warming). In fact, it’s a standard treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning – but not the way you intend. If a patient breathes 100% oxygen (especially at high pressures) it can slowly displace the carbon monoxide from the hemoglobin by sheer force of numbers – and don’t ever let so much as a spark or ember near enriched oxygen environments: that’s just begging for a fire or even an explosion.
But please don’t let me discourage you from inventing. I really like the fact that you’re thinking outside the box, and simplicity can be the heart of a brilliant invention.
In fact, let me suggest a more workable idea in a similar vein: a hyperbaric chamber. That’s a room or compartment that is at a higher than normal pressure. We use those to treat many conditions, including carbon monoxide poisoning and smoke inhalation. It could be something as simple as a man-sized plastic balloon inflated with oxygen. Though it’s a “standard treatment”, the chambers are rather specialized and rare (I doubt there’s even one in Boston, a major medical city-- we used to airlift patients to the submarine facility in Groton CT or a facility in Maine, if they were stable enough.)
Since oxygen production units or storage tanks are very common (many patients have them at home), you might consider coming up with a clever design for a fixed base or portable hyperbaric chamber. Or maybe something related, like a “rescue ball” for outer space or something for victims of a smoky fire on the Space Station.
Think about it. I don’t think I’m doing your homework for you: you’ll have plenty of reading to do, and you still have to come up with the clever part
Maybe I should’ve asked if it was possible for molecular compounds to displace because we only learned about ionic compounds and displacement. Anyways, I’m really sorry if it sounds stupid, but I’m only in tenth-grade here.
Another point: my friend wouldn’t believe me when I told her that a tiny spark in a closed spaced that contains a lot of oxygen would create a fire. She told me that it would diffused enough not to create a fire, but too much oxygen will create a fire, diffused or not. Sheesh.
And not to complicate things for you, an important point to remember is oxygen doesn’t burn. If you were in a room that had a 100% oxygen atmosphere and you lit a match would the whole room burst into flame? No. However, anything in the room that was capable of burning would really present a danger because it would burn much more readily than if it were in the usual 20% oxygen air environment.
Alrighty. Thanks so much for your info. I told my friend about the oxygen tanks and she wouldn’t believe me about that, too. And hopefully, my science teacher will point out everything all of you have told me. Except maybe for the lijands (spelling?) because I don’t think he’s that smart. My friend doesn’t believe me about anything, but she will believe it if she hears it from my teacher. :rolleyes:
Here is a description of why CO bonds 200-300x stronger to hemoglobin than oxygen.
"The hemoglobin protein contains four heme units. Each heme molecule contains a central iron atom, and it is this atom that binds either carbon monoxide, or oxygen, depending on which is present. All four iron sites are involved in binding oxygen, but each site binds a single oxygen molecule. The oxygen molecules bind cooperatively, which means that the first binds weakly, but induces a conformational change that causes the second to bind more tightly, and so on, so that the fourth oxygen is bound several hundred times more strongly than the first. Thus, a high partial pressure of oxygen is required to bind the first oxygen, which is desirable, because the oxygen transport system depends on hemoglobin binding oxygen well in the lungs, where it is more abundant, but not in the oxygen-poor tissues elsewhere, where it needs to be released. Upon release of the first oxygen molecule, the second one is more easily released, and so on, with the effect that oxygen release is facilitated where it is needed the most.
Carbon monoxide is dangerous not so much because of its relatively stronger bond, but because once a hemoglobin molecule has even one bound CO molecule, it can’t adopt the configuration necessary to start binding oxygen. Thus, one or two CO molecules effectively inhibit all four of the oxygen binding sites in hemoglobin."
My friend doesn’t believe me about anything, but she will believe it if she hears it from my teacher. :rolleyes: