Nitrogen (N), nonmetallic element of Group 15 of the periodic table. It is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas that is the most plentiful element in Earth’s atmosphere and is a constituent of all living matter. About four-fifths of Earth’s atmosphere is nitrogen, which was isolated and recognized as a specific substance during early investigations of the air. Carl Wilhelm Scheele, a Swedish chemist, showed in 1772 that air is a mixture of two gases, one of which he called “fire air,” because it supported combustion, and the other “foul air,” because it was left after the “fire air” had been used up. The “fire air” was, of course, oxygen and the “foul air” nitrogen. Continue reading from Encyclopedia Britannica
Nitrogen in the form of ammonium chloride, NH4Cl, was known to the alchemists as sal ammonia. It was manufactured in Egypt by heating a mixture of dung, salt and urine. Nitrogen gas itself was obtained in the 1760s by both Henry Cavendish and Joseph Priestley and they did this by removing the oxygen from air. They noted it extinguished a lighted candle and that a mouse breathing it would soon die. Neither man deduced that it was an element. The first person to suggest this was a young student Daniel Rutherford in his doctorate thesis of September 1772 at Edinburgh, Scotland. Continue reading from Royal Society of Chemistry
Nitrogen is essential to life on Earth. It is a component of all proteins, and it can be found in all living systems. Nitrogen compounds are present in organic materials, foods, fertilizers, explosives and poisons. In its gas form, nitrogen is colorless, odorless and generally considered as inert. In its liquid form, nitrogen is also colorless and odorless, and looks similar to water.
Nitrogen gas plays a role in the formation of an aurora — a natural display of light in the sky that can be predominantly observed Arctic and Antarctic regions — which occurs when fast-moving electrons from space collide with oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere Continue reading from LiveScience
