About Enriched Air Training

What You Learn in Enriched Air Training

In the PADI Enriched Air Diver course, you will learn how to safely dive enriched air nitrox. To start, you will need to develop an understanding of what enriched air is and what additional risks are involved when you choose to dive enriched air. This may mean reading the PADI Enriched Air Diver manual or completing the Enriched Air online course. Either way, you will need to take an examination on this material to ensure you properly understand the benefits and risks of enriched air diving.

Safely diving enriched air also involves learning how to properly use oxygen analyzers. Since the first rule of enriched air diving is that the diver using a bottle of enriched air must personally verify its contents, knowing how to use an analyzer is a necessity. There are several different types of analyzers, so the more exposure you have to how they work, the more confident you will be once you have earned your Enriched Air certification and start diving enriched air. Most training agencies, including PADI, require you to be trained in using at least two different types of analyzers.

You will also learn how to properly mark your nitrox cylinder to avoid confusing it with a bottle of air or another diver's enriched air cylinder. In the practical part of the course, you will learn the proper procedure for obtaining enriched air including what documentation is required.

From there you will move on to calculating maximum operating depths and maximum exposure times to avoid issues with oxygen toxicity. Today that means learning how to use a dive computer and properly set the fraction of oxygen (FO2) and partial pressure of oxygen (PPO2). If your instructor chooses to include tables, it may also mean learning to calculate equivalent air depths and planning enriched air dives using special enriched air tables and log pages.

Once certified, you will be able to plan and execute dives using blends up to 40 percent oxygen.