In 1777 Henry Cavendish carried out the following experiment: he passed air over glowing charcoals, and then treated it by alkali. Residual gas was called mephitic air. Contemporary chemistry makes it clear that air oxygen in reaction with glowing coals was bound in carbon dioxide which then reacted with alkali. The residue was consisted mostly of nitrogen. So, Cavendish extracted nitrogen but failed to understand that it was an elementary substance, i.e. a new chemical element. In the same year Cavendish informed Joseph Priestley about the results of this experiment.
Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
Nitrogen was described by Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who called it "noxious air". He published his master's thesis, in which he showed the main chemical properties of nitrogen. For this reason he is formally considered as nitrogen discoverer.
Nitrogen denominatives are constituted from Latin nitrogenium, where nitrum (from Greek nitron) means "native soda", and genes means "forming". As it was said in Ruland's 1612 Lexicon alchemiae (Dictionary of Alchemy): "Nitrum, baurach, Sal petrosum, nitrum, Germans call it Salpeter, Bergsalz, the same as Sal petrae". |
| In space compounds that contain nitrogen have been observed in gaseous nebula, in solar atmosphere; nitrogen has been detected in interstellar space. Molecular nitrogen is a major constituent of atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune, and occurs in trace amounts of other planetary atmospheres and is estimated to be the 4th most abundant chemical element in Solar system after hydrogen, helium and oxygen. Nitrogen two-atom molecules are the largest single component of the Earth& |