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A Profile Of Nitrogen

A profile of Nitrogen-
The 7th element

This report contains information on:
• The Discovery and History of Nitrogen
• Properties of Nitrogen
• Uses of Nitrogen
• Production of Nitrogen
• Natural Occurrence of Nitrogen
• Additional Information on Nitrogen

The Discovery and History of Nitrogen

It was known during the 18th century that air contains at least two gases, one of which supports combustion and life, and the other of which does not. Nitrogen was discovered by Daniel Rutherford in 1772 in Scotland, who called it noxious air, but Scheele, Cavendish, Priestley, and others at about the same time studied "burnt" or "dephlogisticated" air, as air without oxygen was then called.
Rutherford discovered "noxious air" by putting a mouse inside of a bell jar and waited for him to suffocate. When the mouse suffocated he put another mouse in the jar that died a short time later. In doing this Rutherford had removed oxygen and carbon dioxide from air and showed that the residual gas would not support combustion or living organisms. Nitrogen is a Noble Gas which makes it for the most part inert unless subjected to catalysts or high temperatures and or pressures. The element seemed so inert that Lavoisier named it azote, meaning "without life".


Properties of Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a nonmetal, with an electro negativity of 3.04. It has five electrons in its outer shell and is therefore trivalent in most compounds.Nitrogen gas is colourless, odourless, and relatively inert. Liquid nitrogen is also colourless and odourless, and is similar in appearance to water.
There are two allotropic forms of solid nitrogen, a and b, with a transition between the two forms at -237° C. Nitrogen's melting point is -209.86° C, boiling point is -195.8° C, density is 1.2506 g/l, specific gravity is 0.0808 (-195.8° C) for the liquid and 1.026 (-252° C) for the solid.
At atmospheric pressure molecular nitrogen condenses (liquifies) at 77 K (−195.8 °C) and freezes...