History of Nitroge

Nitrogen, which makes up about 78% of our atmosphere, is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and chemically unreactive gas at room temperature. It is named from the Greek nitron + genes for soda forming.  For many years during the 1500's and 1600's scientists hinted that there was another gas in the atmosphere besides carbon dioxide and oxygen. It was not until the 1700's that scientists could prove there was in fact another gas that took up mass in the atmosphere of the Earth.

Discovered in 1772 by Daniel Rutherford (and independently by others such as Priestly and Cavendish) who was able to remove oxygen and carbon dioxide from a contained tube full of air. He showed that there was residual gas that did not support combustion like oxygen or carbon dioxide. While his experiment was the one that proved that nitrogen existed, other experiments were also going in London where they called the substance "burnt" or "dephlogisticated air".

Nitrogen is the fourth most abundant element in humans and it is more abundant in the known universe than carbon or silicon. Most commercially produced nitrogen gas is recovered from liquefied air. Of that amount, the majority is used to manufacture ammonia (NH₃) via the Haber process. Much is also converted to nitric acid (HNO₃).