Editing Nitrogen (section)

==History==
[[File:Rutherford Daniel.jpg|thumb|left|[[Daniel Rutherford]], discoverer of nitrogen]]
Nitrogen compounds have a very long history, [[ammonium chloride]] having been known to [[Herodotus]]. They were well-known by the Middle Ages. [[Alchemy|Alchemists]] knew nitric acid as ''[[aqua fortis]]'' (strong water), as well as other nitrogen compounds such as [[ammonium]] salts and [[nitrate]] salts. The mixture of nitric and [[hydrochloric acid]]s was known as ''[[aqua regia]]'' (royal water), celebrated for its ability to dissolve [[gold]], the king of metals.<ref name="Greenwood406" />

The discovery of nitrogen is attributed to the Scottish physician [[Daniel Rutherford]] in 1772, who called it ''noxious air''.<ref>Rutherford, Daniel (1772) "[https://books.google.com/books?id=JxUUAAAAQAAJ Dissertatio Inauguralis de aere fixo, aut mephitico] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806192616/https://books.google.com/books?id=JxUUAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0 |date=2020-08-06 }}" (Inaugural dissertation on the air [called] fixed or mephitic), M.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. English translation: {{cite journal | first = Leonard | last = Dobbin | title = Daniel Rutherford's inaugural dissertation |year = 1935 | journal = Journal of Chemical Education | volume = 12 | issue = 8 | pages = 370–75 |doi = 10.1021/ed012p370| bibcode = 1935JChEd..12..370D }}</ref><ref name="Weeks">{{cite journal | doi = 10.1021/ed009p215 | title = The discovery of the elements. IV. Three important gases |year = 1932 | last1 = Weeks | first1 = Mary Elvira |author-link1=Mary Elvira Weeks| journal = Journal of Chemical Education | volume = 9 | issue = 2 | page = 215|bibcode = 1932JChEd...9..215W }}</ref> Though he did not recognise it as an entirely different chemical substance, he clearly distinguished it from Joseph Black's [[Joseph Black#Carbon dioxide|"fixed air"]], or carbon dioxide.<ref>{{cite book |first=Aaron J. |last=Ihde |title=The Development of Modern Chemistry |location=New York | publisher=Harper & Row |year=1964}}</ref> The fact that there was a component of air that does not support [[combustion]] was clear to Rutherford, although he was not aware that it was an element. Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by [[Carl Wilhelm Scheele]],<ref>Carl Wilhelm Scheele, [https://archive.org/stream/CarlWilhelmSche00Sche#page/n1/mode/2up ''Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer''] [Chemical treatise on air and fire] (Upsala, Sweden: Magnus Swederus, 1777; and Leipzig, (Germany): Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius, 1777). In the section titled "Die Luft muß aus elastischen Flüßigkeiten von zweyerley Art, zusammengesetzet seyn." (The air must be composed of elastic fluids of two sorts), pp. 6–14, Scheele presents the results of eight experiments in which air was reacted with various substances. He concluded ([https://archive.org/stream/CarlWilhelmSche00Sche#page/12/mode/2up p. 13]): ''"So viel sehe ich aus angeführten Versuchen, daß die Luft aus 2 von einander unterschiedenen Flußigkeiten bestehe, von welchen die eine die Eigenschaft das Phlogiston anzuziehen gar nicht äussere, die andere aber zur solchen Attraction eigentlich aufgeleget ist und welche zwischen dem 3:ten und 4:ten Theil von der ganzen Luftmasse aus machet."'' (So I see [this] much from the experiments [that were] conducted: that the air consists of two fluids [that] differ from one another, of which the one doesn't express at all the property of attracting phlogiston; the other, however, is capable of such attraction and which makes up between 1/3 and 1/4 part of the entire mass of the air.)</ref> [[Henry Cavendish]],<ref>{{cite journal | first = Joseph | last = Priestley | title = Observations on different kinds of air |year = 1772 | journal = Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London | volume = 62 | pages = 147–256|doi =10.1098/rstl.1772.0021 | s2cid = 186210131 }} ; [https://books.google.com/books?id=aBxWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA225 see p. 225.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160903135622/https://books.google.com/books?id=aBxWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA225 |date=2016-09-03 }}</ref> and [[Joseph Priestley]],<ref>{{cite journal | first = Joseph | last = Priestley | title = Observations on different kinds of air |year = 1772 | journal = Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London | volume = 62 | pages = 147–256 | doi=10.1098/rstl.1772.0021| s2cid = 186210131 }} ; see: [https://books.google.com/books?id=aBxWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA225 "VII. Of air infected with the fumes of burning charcoal." pp. 225–28.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160903135622/https://books.google.com/books?id=aBxWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA225 |date=2016-09-03 }}</ref> who referred to it as ''burnt air'' or ''[[Phlogiston theory|phlogisticated air]]''. French chemist [[Antoine Lavoisier]] referred to nitrogen gas as "[[wikt:mephitic air|mephitic air]]" or ''azote'', from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word {{lang|el|άζωτικός}} (azotikos), "no life", because it is [[Asphyxiant gas|asphyxiant]].<ref>Lavoisier, Antoine with Robert Kerr, trans., ''Elements of Chemistry'', 4th ed. (Edinburgh, Scotland: William Creech, 1799), pp. 85–86. [https://books.google.com/books?id=adYKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA85 [p. 85]:] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806230924/https://books.google.com/books?id=adYKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA85 |date=2020-08-06 }} "In reflecting upon the circumstances of this experiment, we readily perceive; that the mercury, during its calcination [i.e., roasting in air], absorbs the salubrious and respirable part of the air, or, to speak more strictly, the base of this respirable part; that the remaining air is a species of mephitis [i.e., a poisonous gas emitted from the earth], incapable of supporting combustion or respiration; ... " [https://books.google.com/books?id=adYKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA86 [p. 86]:] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806192501/https://books.google.com/books?id=adYKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA86 |date=2020-08-06 }} "I shall afterwards shew, that at least in our climate, the atmospheric air is composed of respirable and mephitic airs, in the proportion of 27 and 73; ... "</ref><ref>Lavoisier, Antoine with Robert Kerr, trans., ''Elements of Chemistry'', 4th ed. (Edinburgh, Scotland: William Creech, 1799), [https://books.google.com/books?id=adYKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA101 p. 101:] "The chemical properties of the noxious portion of the atmospheric air being hitherto but little known, we have been satisfied to derive the name of its base from its known quality of killing such animals as are forced to breathe it, giving it the name of ''azot'', from the Greek privitive particle α and ξωη, ''vita''; hence the name of the noxious part of atmospheric air is ''azotic gas''."</ref> In an atmosphere of pure nitrogen, animals died and flames were extinguished. Though Lavoisier's name was not accepted in English since it was pointed out that all gases but oxygen are either asphyxiant or outright toxic, it is used in many languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Albanian, Turkish, etc.; the German ''Stickstoff'' similarly refers to the same characteristic, viz. ''ersticken'' "to choke or suffocate") and still remains in English in the common names of many nitrogen compounds, such as [[hydrazine]] and compounds of the [[azide]] ion. Finally, it led to the name "[[pnictogen]]s" for the group headed by nitrogen, from the Greek πνίγειν "to choke".<ref name="Greenwood406">Greenwood and Earnshaw, pp. 406–07</ref>

The English word nitrogen (1794) entered the language from the French {{Lang|fr|nitrogène}}, coined in 1790 by French chemist [[Jean-Antoine Chaptal]] (1756–1832),<ref>Chaptal, J. A. and Nicholson, William trans. (1800) ''Elements of Chemistry'', 3rd ed. London, England: C.C. and J. Robinson, vol. 1. [https://archive.org/stream/elementsofchemis01chap#page/n47/mode/2up pp. xxxv–xxxvi:] "In order to correct the Nomenclature on this head [i.e., in this regard], nothing more is necessary than to substitute to [i.e., for] this word a denomination which is derived from the general system made use of; and I have presumed to propose that of Nitrogene Gas. In the first place, it is deduced from the characteristic and exclusive property of this gas, which forms the radical of the nitric acid. By this means we shall preserve to the combinations [i.e., compounds] of this substance the received [i.e., prevailing] denominations, such as those of the Nitric Acid, Nitrates, Nitrites, &c."</ref> from the French ''nitre'' ([[potassium nitrate]], also called [[saltpetre]]) and the French suffix ''-gène'', "producing", from the [[Greek language|Greek]] -γενής (-genes, "begotten"). Chaptal's meaning was that nitrogen is the essential part of [[nitric acid]], which in turn was produced from [[nitre]]. In earlier times, nitre had been confused with Egyptian "natron" ([[sodium carbonate]])&nbsp;– called νίτρον (nitron) in Greek&nbsp;– which, despite the name, contained no nitrate.<ref>[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nitrogen nitrogen] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702134749/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nitrogen |date=2017-07-02 }}. Etymonline.com. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref>

The earliest military, industrial, and agricultural applications of nitrogen compounds used saltpetre ([[sodium nitrate]] or potassium nitrate), most notably in [[gunpowder]], and later as [[fertiliser]]. In 1910, [[John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh|Lord Rayleigh]] discovered that an electrical discharge in nitrogen gas produced "active nitrogen", a [[monatomic]] [[allotrope]] of nitrogen.<ref>Strutt, R. J. (1911) [http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsa/85/577/219.full.pdf "Bakerian Lecture. A chemically active modification of nitrogen, produced by the electric discharge"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220041712/http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsa/85/577/219.full.pdf |date=2016-12-20 }} ''Proceedings of the Royal Society A'', '''85''' (577): 219–29.</ref> The "whirling cloud of brilliant yellow light" produced by his apparatus reacted with [[mercury (element)|mercury]] to produce explosive [[mercury nitride]].<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121101100510/http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/activen/index.html Lord Rayleigh's Active Nitrogen]}}. Lateralscience.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-10-26.</ref>

For a long time, sources of nitrogen compounds were limited. Natural sources originated either from biology or deposits of nitrates produced by atmospheric reactions. [[Nitrogen fixation]] by industrial processes like the [[Frank–Caro process]] (1895–1899) and [[Haber–Bosch process]] (1908–1913) eased this shortage of nitrogen compounds, to the extent that half of global [[food production]] now relies on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.<ref name="Haber100">{{cite journal | doi = 10.1038/ngeo325 | title = How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world |year = 2008 | last1 = Erisman | first1 = Jan Willem | last2 = Sutton | first2 = Mark A. | last3 = Galloway | first3 = James | last4 = Klimont | first4 = Zbigniew | last5 = Winiwarter | first5 = Wilfried | journal = Nature Geoscience | volume = 1 | issue = 10 | page = 636|bibcode = 2008NatGe...1..636E | s2cid = 94880859 }}</ref> At the same time, use of the [[Ostwald process]] (1902) to produce nitrates from industrial nitrogen fixation allowed the large-scale industrial production of nitrates as [[feedstock]] in the manufacture of [[explosives]] in the [[World war|World Wars]] of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite patent |inventor1-last=Ostwald |inventor1-first=Wilhelm |inventor1-link=Wilhelm Ostwald |title=Improvements in the Manufacture of Nitric Acid and Nitrogen Oxides |country=GB |number=190200698 |pubdate=1902-03-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite patent |inventor-last=Ostwald |inventor-first=Wilhelm |inventor-link=Wilhelm Ostwald |title=Improvements in and relating to the Manufacture of Nitric Acid and Oxides of Nitrogen |country=GB |number=190208300 |pubdate= 1903-02-26 |fdate=1902-12-18}}</ref>