How does carbon--dioxide from generator kills?

Answer 1

The main problem is that if you are inhaling carbon dioxide instead of normal air, then you are obviously breathing reduced oxygen or no even no oxygen at all. Any gas can kill by this means, simply because you're breathing it instead of getting oxygen. A second problem is that carbon dioxide becomes an acid when it dissolves in water. Blood is mostly water, so breathing carbon dioxide will make your blood acidic and that can disrupt your body chemistry. **Edit I don't know what kind of engine you're talking about, but normal generator emissions are made up of mostly Nitrogenous gas (N2), Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Water Vapor (H20). Engines are also made to reduce the emissions of: CO, VCOs, and Nitrogen Oxides. Therefore, it depends on your own engine emissions rates but generally, cases of CO2 poisoning is very rare and is often caused in conjunction with other gases. Here's an example: CO2 is usually at 380 part per million (ppm) in the air you and I breath in. But at 1% or 10,000 ppm (26 times the normal concentration) you would feel drowsy and according to British Medical Journals it takes about 10-25% CO2 (100,000-250,000 ppm, roughly 260 - 650 times normal amounts of CO2 concentrations in the air) to kill. Now, Carbon Monoxide (CO) only takes 35 ppm (0.0035%) to cause headache and dizziness after long periods of exposure (~8 hours). Exposure at 3,200 ppm can cause death within 30 minutes and at ~13,000 ppm causes death in 2-3 breaths and in less than 3 minutes. So to summarize - Carbon dioxide CAN kill, but you'll most likely get killed due to Carbon monoxide poisioning many times over already, and kills in roughly the same way as CO2.