Who is nitrogen named after

This was done by passing the mixture of gases through a solution of alkali, which absorbed the carbon dioxide but left behind the nitrogen gas. Cavendish prepared nitrogen gas by this means. He passed air back and forth over heated charcoal which converted the oxygen in the air to carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide was then dissolved in alkali leaving behind the inert nitrogen gas, which he correctly observed was slightly less dense than common air.

Unfortunately, Cavendish didn't publish his findings. He just communicated them in a letter to fellow scientist, Joseph Priestley, one of the discoverers of oxygen gas. Consequently, the discovery of nitrogen is usually accredited to one of Joseph Black's students, the Scottish scientist, Daniel Rutherford, who's also the uncle of the novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott.

Rutherford published his findings, which was similar to those of Cavendish in his doctoral thesis entitled, "An Inaugural Dissertation on the Air called Fixed or Mephitic" in So what about the name, nitrogen? In the late s, chemical nomenclature underwent a major revolution under the guidance of the French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier. It was he and his colleagues, who suggested many of the names we still use today including the word hydrogen, which comes from the Greek meaning water former and oxygen from the Greek for acid producer, since Lavoisier mistakenly thought that oxygen was the key component of all acids.

However, in his list of the then known elements, Lavoisier included the term azote or azotic gas for what we now call nitrogen. This again stems from Greek words, this time meaning the absence of life, once again focussing on its mephitic quality. It was not long before it was pointed out that there are many mephitic gases, in fact no gas other than oxygen can support life. The name nitrogen was therefore proposed from the observation, again first made by Cavendish that if the gases sparked with oxygen, and then the resulting nitrogen dioxide gases passed through alkali, nitre, otherwise known as saltpetre or potassium nitrate is formed.

The word nitrogen therefore means nitre former. The derivatives of the word, azote still survive today. The compound used to explosively fill car air bags with gas is sodium azide, a compound of just sodium and nitrogen.

When triggered this compound explosively decomposes freeing the nitrogen gas, which inflates the bags. Far from destroying life, this azotic compound has been responsible for saving thousands. Cambridge University's Peter Wothers telling the story of the discovery of nitrogen. Next time on Chemistry in its element, how chemists like Mendeleev got to grips with both the known and the unknown. While other scientists had tried to create ways of ordering the known elements, Mendeleev created the system that could predict the existence of elements, not yet discovered.

When he presented the table to the world in , it contained four prominent gaps. One of these was just below manganese and Mendeleev predicted that element with atomic weight 43 would be found to fill that gap, but it was not until that a group of Italian scientists finally found the missing element, which they named technetium.

And you can hear Mark Peplow telling technetium's tale in next week's edition of Chemistry in its element. I'm Chris Smith, thank you for listening. See you next time. Chemistry in its element is brought to you by the Royal Society of Chemistry and produced by thenakedscientists.

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Discovery date. Discovered by. Daniel Rutherford. Origin of the name. The name is derived from the Greek 'nitron' and 'genes' meaning nitre forming. Melting point. Boiling point. Atomic number. Relative atomic mass. Key isotopes. Electron configuration. CAS number. ChemSpider ID. ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database. Electronegativity Pauling scale.

Covalent bond. Found in. Common oxidation states. Atomic mass. Half life. Mode of decay. Relative supply risk. Crustal abundance ppm. A similar process may have occurred for the formation of the Earth. Harries and his team propose that the primordial ice prehistoric ice may have been dragged to the inner portions of the Solar System in the protoplanetary phase, during which ammonia was evaporated and bombarded by small bodies, forming carlsbergite-containing bodies.

As our planet is located in the inner Solar System, it is possible that the primordial ice may have accumulated on Earth during its formation [4]. While the origin of nitrogen remains a mystery, we can attempt to answer the question of why there is so much nitrogen in the atmosphere compared to other gases.

One theory is that when the Earth formed billions of years ago, gases readily mixed with other chemicals to form rocks or oceans. Additionally, nitrogen is a diatomic molecule and is unable to escape into space unlike lighter molecules such as hydrogen.

Why is all of this important? Discovering the origins of nitrogen provides information on the age-old question of how life began or whether biomolecules can be synthesised.

DOI: Nature Geoscience. Meteorite mineral named after beer is time capsule New Scientist. Your email address will not be published. Highlighted Articles Issue Issue Nitrogen, as a gas is colorless, odorless, and generally considered an inert element.

Nitrogen gas can be prepared by heating a water solution of ammonium nitrite NH 4 NO 3. Sodium nitrate NaNO 3 and potassium nitrate KNO 3 are formed by the decomposition of organic matter with compounds of these metals present. In certain dry areas of the world these saltpeters are found in quantity and are used as fertilizers. The nitrogen cycle is one of the most important processes in nature for living organisms. In other words, Nature has provided a method to produce nitrogen for plants to grow.

Animals eat the plant material where the nitrogen has been incorporated into their system, primarily as protein. The cycle is completed when other bacteria convert the waste nitrogen compounds back to nitrogen gas. Nitrogen is crucial to life, as it is a component of all proteins. Ammonia NH 3 is the most important commercial compound of nitrogen. It is produced by the Haber Process.