Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A gas, a mixture of helium and oxygen used in medicine and in diving.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

heli(um) + ox(ygen)

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Examples

  • The dolphin, which had been trained for the study, was given a mixture of 80 per cent helium and 20 per cent oxygen known as heliox through a US Navy Fenzy breather, which was placed over its blowhole.

    Wired Top Stories Wired UK 2011

  • Nitrox and heliox, Gideon knew, were air mixtures intended for use at great depth or during extended dives in order to alleviate the various problems, including the bends, oxygen toxicity, and nitrogen narcosis, that came as the result of gases being compressed—or decompressed—in the human body.

    Gideon’s war Howard Gordon 2011

  • Nitrox and heliox, Gideon knew, were air mixtures intended for use at great depth or during extended dives in order to alleviate the various problems, including the bends, oxygen toxicity, and nitrogen narcosis, that came as the result of gases being compressed—or decompressed—in the human body.

    Gideon’s war Howard Gordon 2011

  • Nitrox and heliox, Gideon knew, were air mixtures intended for use at great depth or during extended dives in order to alleviate the various problems, including the bends, oxygen toxicity, and nitrogen narcosis, that came as the result of gases being compressed—or decompressed—in the human body.

    Gideon’s war Howard Gordon 2011

  • Nitrox and heliox, Gideon knew, were air mixtures intended for use at great depth or during extended dives in order to alleviate the various problems, including the bends, oxygen toxicity, and nitrogen narcosis, that came as the result of gases being compressed—or decompressed—in the human body.

    Gideon’s war Howard Gordon 2011

  • If a patient is in a heliox atmosphere long enough, he can “freeze” to death even near room temperature, if he is not properly bundled up.

    Eleventh Hour and Decompression Chambers 2008

  • This is why heliox has such a low oxygen concentration (much lower than the 21% of standard air).

    Eleventh Hour and Decompression Chambers 2008

  • One made her presence known soon after they disembarked, pausing only long enough to exchange a few words with the massive Chirinaldo as it was recharging its heliox-breather.

    A Call to Arms Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1991

  • There were many reasons why this was so, not the least of them being that the presence of an oxynitro atmosphere was not necessarily a prerequisite for the development of intelligence, the heliox-breathing Chirinaldo being the most prominent exception to the usual but far from absolute atmospheric rule.

    A Call to Arms Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1991

  • As for the Chirinaldo, one could never be certain what the massive heliox-breathers were thinking, except that their easygoing society was anything but combative in nature.

    A Call to Arms Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1991

Comments

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  • "Heliox generates less airway resistance than air and thereby requires less mechanical energy to ventilate the lungs. "Work of Breathing" (WOB) is reduced. It does this by two mechanisms:

    1.increased tendency to laminar flow;

    2.reduced resistance in turbulent flow."

    -- From Wikipedia's heliox page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heliox&oldid=835607282

    June 22, 2018