26 Jul

PADI Instructor Development course review: Partial Pressure

So you’ve run through some preparation for your PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC), but still unsure as to what partial pressure is… in this article, Blue Season Bali will answer your questions. Like many living creatures, we require oxygen in order to survive. We need that oxygen in order for our bodies to function properly. This process then produces carbon dioxide. The other purpose for breathing is to get rid of this gas. This is unlike aquatic animals, like fish, who need water.

The first obstacle we need to overcome to explore the underwater realm is to find a way to supply breathing gas. If it were this simple, we would have discovered not just 5% of the treasures of the ocean, but more, if it weren’t for one more barrier – pressure.


PADI Instructor Development course review: Partial Pressure Diving

What is partial pressure?

In a mixture of gases, each individual gas contributes to the total pressure of the gas mixture. This contribution of gases is known as partial pressure, also known as Dalton’s Law. It is important to have a good understanding of this as a scuba diving instructor.

How does partial pressure apply to scuba diving?

Scuba diving is all about receiving gas into your body while you are underwater. What complicates everything compared to the surface is how the gases react at depth, under pressure, in your body, and in your equipment.

To be able to continue your underwater adventures safely and with ease, you need to understand the behavior of these gasses and how it affects your scuba diving practice. With the understanding of partial pressure, you can understand and the following: nitrogen narcosis and oxygen toxicity.

One of the well-known occurrences of gas toxicity is oxygen toxicity, which is recreational diving could happen when diving on Nitrox. Here is, we present a table for a maximum of depth on nitrox because of partial pressure O2  that recommended by PADI.

Partial Pressure - PADI Instructor Knowledge

So what does this all mean? With enriched air diving there is the risk that you can suffer from Oxygen toxicity. This risk becomes extremely high if your Oxygen partial pressure becomes higher than PO2 1.4 ata / bar. As your depth increases so does your Oxygen partial pressure.

How does this affect you? This puts limits on the depths that you can go. According to PADI, there are two partial pressures that you should be aware of 1.4 ata / bar and 1.6 ata / bar, respectively known as the maximum and the contingency.

Where do I start?

At Blue Season Bali, we provide the enriched air diver course. You’ll learn about the following:

  • How to manage oxygen exposure
  • To practice analyzing oxygen content in your scuba tank
  • Set your dive computer for diving with enriched air nitrox

We have been awarded by PADI as a ‘Five-star Career Development Center’ and take pride in our 100% safety record. At Blue Season Bali, we want to provide the best experience, by the best team on deck!

For more information regarding our PADI curriculum and PADI IDC courses, do not hesitate to contact us.

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