it is possible to obtain oxygen from air by fractional distillation because

Options

A. oxygen is in a different group of the periodic table from nitrogen.
B. oxygen is more reactive than nitrogen.
C. oxygen has higher b.p. than nitrogen.
D. oxygen has a lower density than nitrogen.

Answer

C

Explanation

Air is liquified by making use of the joule-Thomson effect (cooling by expansion of the gas). Water vapour and `CO_(2)` are removed by solidification. The remaining major constituents of liquid air i.e., liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen are separated by means of fractional distillation (b.p. of `O_(2)= -183^(@)C` : b.P. of `N_(2)= -195.8^(@)C`).