Talk:Oxygen

Pre-Far note

The article has are several single sentences, unsourced statements, and more coverage needs to be added. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 03:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The article is already pretty long, what kind of coverage are you suggesting? Keres🌕Luna ^edits! 16:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Oops, sorry for the late reply. Added bunch of tags. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 00:31, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I will try to get to these tags and issues within a month, but I am very busy right now. Keres🌕Luna ^edits! 21:50, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Just take your time, no rush. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 01:40, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

@Boneless Pizza!: All cn tags have been taken care of. Keres🌕Luna ^edits! 16:23, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

It seems like the common issue have been resolved already (nice job), though I'm not sure if this one still needs more eyes since I'm not expert at this subject. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 01:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Should the lead have a long paragraph about respiration mechanisms of animals? The topic is not covered in the article AFAICT. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I cut the lead and moved the citation from the intro into the body.  Done Johnjbarton (talk) 18:31, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

The History / Discovery section has some issues. The paragraph on Sendivogius relies on one Polish source with possible bias. The Maples source seems to have been written by a Mason (Freemasonry) and it does not anyway verify the content

• This discovery of Sendivogius was however frequently denied by the generations of scientists and chemists which succeeded him.

In other sources it's clear that later scientists did not understand the consequences of Sendivogius' work anymore than he did. That's quite a lot different than "denied".

A much better source for the entire section would be

• Severinghaus, J. W. (2016). Eight sages over five centuries share oxygen's discovery. Advances in physiology education, 40(3), 370-376.

In particular the early studies did not "discover" oxygen as a molecule or element but rather noted some properties and found steps towards purification. (The whole concept of "discovery" of these early elements makes no sense.) Johnjbarton (talk) 03:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I reworked the history section. I would like to include more about the Cavendish/Priestley/Lavoisier outlined in the Severinghaus source. Cavendish showed Lavoisier that hydrogen and air produced water, a key to discrediting philogiston, but I want to find another source to confirm. But I think the current content is good enough for now.  Done Johnjbarton (talk) 18:53, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

@Boneless Pizza!: Have all of your concerns been resolved for this article? If not, what else do you think needs to be done? @Keresluna and Johnjbarton: I added two cn tags to the article. I think the short paragraphs in "Build-up in the atmosphere" could be better formatted into longer paragraphs. Z1720 (talk) 00:55, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

I fixed the 2 cn-s. Johnjbarton (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

See my comment on "Build-up in the atmosphere" below. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:28, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720 I rewrote "Build-up in the atmosphere" and as long as other editors are ok with it I'm  Done here. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:31, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: All of my sourcing concerns have been resolved. I am unsure what Boneless Pizza! was referring to when they specified that more coverage was necessary in the original post. I have no other concerns with the article. If you think the article meets the FA criteria, can you mark it as "satisfactory" at WP:URFA/2020A? Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 17:27, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I can see that this article has undergone significant improvements and can now be removed from the list of notices given at Wikipedia:Featured article review/notices given. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 01:33, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• A setup for preparation of Oxygen.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:40, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Typo in the "Extraterrestrial free oxygen" section

in the "Extraterrestrial free oxygen" section of this article it says "...that oxygen may produced abiotically..."

shouldn't it be "...that oxygen may be produced abiotically..."? WigglyB (talk) 19:46, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, please fix it. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: the article is semi-protected and WigglyB is not autoconfirmed. @WigglyB: thanks for reporting it; I have fixed the grammar issue. In the future I suggest making an edit request to alert others about your proposed edit. OutsideNormality (talk) 02:04, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

thanks Johnjbarton (talk) 02:09, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 July 2026

Why little or no mention of British philosopher Joseph Priestly and his isolation and description of the gas (air) later named oxygen by Antoin Lavoisier ? ~2026-38578-70 (talk) 18:20, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Please see the article section Oxygen#Scientific_era for discussion of the role of Joseph Priestley. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:31, 7 July 2026 (UTC)