biology question #339

Rick Anderson, a 15 year old male from the Internet asks on February 15, 1998,

Q:

Is the air we exhale pure carbon dioxide? If not, then what is it?

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the answer

Barry Shell answered on February 15, 1998, A:

It's far from pure carbon dioxide. Not at all. First of all, like all of the air on the earth, it's about 78% nitrogen. There's also still a lot of oxygen in exhaled air. It goes down to about 17% from the normal 21% in regular air. The amount of carbon dioxide in exhaled air is about 3%. The rest is made up of water vapour and trace gases always present in normal air.

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