[Karen W.]

Wow I did not know that!

Karen

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Gaia

quote:Originally posted by another_someone

It is not just the low temperature that can cause problems with liquid nitrogen, but also as liquid nitrogen evaporates it will displace the air in the room and cause you to suffocate (this is true of any gas, whether nitrogen or otherwise – and dry ice is theoretically even more dangerous than dry ice, since the evaporating CO2 is actually toxic, whereas nitrogen is not).

George

I think this should read: and dry ice is theoretically even more dangerous than liquid nitrogen

Gaia  xxx

LOL - indeed it should.

George

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Karen W.
IS Liquid Nitrogen related in any way or some form of nitro-glycerin, or is Nitro-glycerin a form of liquid nitrogen? Did I confuse the question or clarify it?

Karen

Chemically, nitroglycerin contains nitrogen, as liquid nitrogen is nitrogen.  The point is that it is not the actual nitrogen in nitroglycerin that is explosive, but the structure in which it is bound up.  Other materials that contain nitrogen are ceramics like aluminium nitride or boron nitride, which are highly stable substances (some forms of boron nitride being almost as hard as diamond, and has a melting point of over 2900 centigrade, while aluminium nitride melts around 2200 centigrade, gallium nitride at 2500 centigrade).

Nitrogen is a key component of most of the major substances of life (and very many poisons, such as cyanide).

It all depends upon how the nitrogen fits into the structures of the other components of the components around it – but that is true of all chemistry, not only the chemistry of nitrogen.

George

[Gaia]

Roughly 70% of the air we breathe is nitrogen.

Gaia  xxx