Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often known as the pnictogens. It's a standard ingredient in the universe, estimated at seventh in total abundance within the Milky Method and the Solar System. At customary temperature and strain, two atoms of the component bond to form N2, a colourless and odourless diatomic gasoline. N2 kinds about 78% of Earth's environment, making it the most plentiful chemical species in air. Due to the volatility of nitrogen compounds, nitrogen is comparatively rare within the solid elements of the Earth. It was first found and isolated by Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772 and independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Henry Cavendish at about the same time. The identify nitrogène was advised by French chemist Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal in 1790 when it was discovered that nitrogen was current in nitric acid and nitrates. Antoine Lavoisier recommended as an alternative the identify azote, from the Historical Greek: ἀζωτικός "no life", as it is an asphyxiant gasoline; this identify is used in a number of languages, 5 Step Formula and seems within the English names of some nitrogen compounds such as hydrazine, azides and azo compounds.

Elemental nitrogen is often produced from air by stress swing adsorption expertise. About 2/3 of commercially produced elemental nitrogen is used as an inert (oxygen-free) gas for industrial uses resembling food packaging, and far of the remaining is used as liquid nitrogen in cryogenic purposes. Many industrially important compounds, akin to ammonia, nitric acid, natural nitrates (propellants and explosives), and cyanides, contain nitrogen. This causes difficulty for both organisms and trade in converting N2 into helpful compounds, however at the identical time it implies that burning, exploding, or decomposing nitrogen compounds to form nitrogen gasoline releases large amounts of usually useful power. Synthetically produced ammonia and nitrates are key industrial fertilisers, and fertiliser nitrates are key pollutants in the eutrophication of water methods. Aside from its use in fertilisers and energy stores, nitrogen is a constituent of natural compounds as various as aramids used in excessive-energy fabric and cyanoacrylate used in superglue.

Nitrogen happens in all organisms, primarily in amino acids (and thus proteins), in the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and in the power switch molecule adenosine triphosphate. The human body accommodates about 3% nitrogen by mass, the fourth most plentiful component in the body after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The nitrogen cycle describes the movement of the factor from the air, into the biosphere and natural compounds, then back into the environment. Nitrogen is a constituent of each major pharmacological drug class, together with antibiotics. Many medication are mimics or prodrugs of natural nitrogen-containing signal molecules: for 5 Step Formula instance, the organic nitrates nitroglycerin and nitroprusside management blood stress by metabolising into nitric oxide. Many notable nitrogen-containing drugs, such as the pure caffeine and morphine or the artificial amphetamines, act on receptors of animal neurotransmitters. Nitrogen compounds have a really long history, ammonium chloride having been known to Herodotus. They have been well-known by the Middle Ages. Alchemists knew nitric acid as aqua fortis (strong water), in addition to different nitrogen compounds similar to ammonium salts and nitrate salts.

The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids was often called aqua regia (royal water), celebrated for its potential to dissolve gold, the king of metals. The invention of nitrogen is attributed to the Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who known as it noxious air. Although he didn't recognise it as a completely totally different chemical substance, he clearly distinguished it legit work from home guide Joseph Black's "fastened air", or carbon dioxide. The fact that there was a component of air that does not assist combustion was clear to Rutherford, although he was not aware that it was a component. French chemist Antoine Lavoisier referred to nitrogen gas as "mephitic air" or azote, from the Greek phrase άζωτικός (azotikos), "no life", because it is asphyxiant. In an ambiance of pure nitrogen, proven affiliate system animals died and flames have been extinguished. Though Lavoisier's name was not accepted in English since it was pointed out that all gases however oxygen are both asphyxiant or outright toxic, it's used in many languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Albanian, Turkish, and so on.; the German Stickstoff similarly refers to the same characteristic, viz.

English within the frequent names of many nitrogen compounds, corresponding to hydrazine and compounds of the azide ion. Lastly, it led to the title "pnictogens" for the group headed by nitrogen, from the Greek πνίγειν "to choke". French nitre (potassium nitrate, additionally known as saltpetre) and the French suffix -gène, "producing", from the Greek -γενής (-genes, "begotten"). Chaptal's that means was that nitrogen is the essential a part of nitric acid, which in flip was produced from nitre. In earlier times, nitre had been confused with Egyptian "natron" (sodium carbonate) - called νίτρον (nitron) in Greek - which, despite the identify, contained no nitrate. The earliest military, industrial, 5 Step Formula and agricultural purposes of nitrogen compounds used saltpetre (sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate), most notably in gunpowder, and 5 Step Formula later as fertiliser. In 1910, Lord Rayleigh discovered that an electrical discharge in nitrogen fuel produced "active nitrogen", a monatomic allotrope of nitrogen. The "whirling cloud of sensible yellow mild" produced by his apparatus reacted with mercury to produce explosive mercury nitride.