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Into single atoms of oxygen, or into a different element?

Both of them are doable, but with a couple problems.

You could split O2 into O with electrolysis. If you did that, the oxygen atoms would immediately reform into O2, so spending the energy to perform the electrolysis would be a waste.

Breaking oxygen into another element would require high-energy physics tools like a cyclotron. It'd be very expensive, you'd have to justify the project to the people who owned the accelerator (who would be using it already - there are far more projects that need accelerator time than there is accelerator time to use) and the elements people make in accelerators are usually radioactive.

Theoretically it's possible to do it. Is it practical? Not really.

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10y ago

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