Question

Why must hospital personnel wear special conducting shoes while working around oxygen in the operating room? What might happen if the personnel wore shoes with rubber soles?

Answer 1

Hint: To solve the above question we will find why hospital personnel wear special conducting shoes while working around the operating room. This is due to the charge that is caused due to the frictional force which may cause an explosion in an oxygen rich environment.

Complete step-by-step solution:
In the above given question we have to tell why any hospital personnel wear special conducting shoes while working around oxygen in the operating room and also what can happen if these hospital personnel wear rubber shoes.
The conducting shoes are worn by hospital personnel to avoid the building up of a static charge over them as the personnel walks.
But if the personnel wears rubber-soled shoes while working around oxygen in the operating room, it may acquire a charge by the friction created by the floor and could discharge with a spark and can possibly cause an explosive burning situation and this burning explosion is enhanced by the oxygen because we know that oxygen helps in burning. The conducting shoes provide a constant connection with the earth and makes the wearer grounded and allows the excess charge to leak away
We know that any substance that causes charge accumulation can never be used in an oxygen rich environment. These conducting shoes help prevent the charge accumulation on the body and the person wearing it will not get charged due to the presence of oxygen. The conducting shoes avoid the static charge during walking. The rubber soled shoes when they are rubbed against the floor during walking may cause the conduction of charge which has the ability to develop spark or fire in any oxygen rich environment. Hence, we can say that conducting shoes are worn to allow leakage of any excess charge and prevent inflammability caused due to oxygen.

Note: Oxygen is a significantly inflammable substance which may cause an explosion in the operating room and the presence of friction in the floor can cause the spark which may result in a significant explosion and if personnel wear rubber shoes the chances of spark due to friction increases.