What is nitrogen used for?
Nitrogen is the most common pure element in the earth, making up 78.1% of the entire volume of the atmosphere. Commercial nitrogen is frequently a by-product of air-processing for industrial concentration of oxygen for steelmaking and other applications. Nitrogen occurs in all organisms, primarily in amino acids (and thus proteins), in the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and in the energy transfer molecule adenosine triphosphate. The human body contains about 3% nitrogen by mass, the 4th most abundant element in the human body after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.
Applications
1.Synthetically manufactured ammonia and nitrates are important industrial fertilizers, while fertilizer nitrates form important pollutants in the eutrophication of water systems. Besides its use in fertilizers and energy-stores, nitrogen forms part of organic compounds as varied as Kevlar used in high-strength fabric and cyanoacrylate used in superglue.
2.Nitrogen forms a constituent of all major pharmacological drug classes, including antibiotics. Many pharmacological drugs are mimics or prodrugs of natural nitrogen-containing signal molecules in the human body: for example, the organic nitrates nitroglycerin and nitroprusside control blood pressure by metabolizing into nitric oxide.
3.About two-thirds of nitrogen manufactured by industry is sold as the gas and the remaining one-third as the liquid. The gas is generally used as an inert atmosphere when the oxygen in the air could form a fire, explosion, or oxidizing hazard.
4.It is utilized, for example, as a modified atmosphere, pure or mixed with carbon dioxide (CO2), to nitrogenate and preserve the freshness of packaged or bulk foods. Pure nitrogen as food additive is labeled in the European Union with the E number E941.
5. It is also used, for example, in incandescent light bulbs as a low-cost alternative to Ar, in fire suppression systems for Information technology (IT) equipment, in the production of stainless steel, in the case hardening of steel by nitriding, in some aircraft fuel systems to reduce fire hazard, and to inflate race car and aircraft tires, minimizing the difficulties caused by moisture and oxygen in normal air, etc.
6.Liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic liquid. When insulated in proper containers such as Dewar flasks (vacuum flask which acts as an insulating storage vessel that greatly lengthens the time over which its contents remain hotter or cooler than the flask’s surroundings.
