[billnotgatez]

Nitrogen seems fairly non-reactive. Does anyone know of room temperature activity of nitrogen? For example, will it combine with sodium at room temperature assuming no oxygen present?
Regards,
Bill

[Mitch]

bacteria can fix it to make ammonia.

[limpet chicken]

Subjecting a stream of nitrogen gas in a glass tube to a corona discharge will, so long as the stream excludes all but a trace of O2, will yield a glowing yellow gas which consists of monatomic nitrogen.

Monatomic nitrogen is metastable, and will react with transition metals to give the corresponding nitride, mercury nitride is one to beware of, as it is highly explosive.

[billnotgatez]

Instead of mercury could we use zinc wool?
Would that be less explosive?

Doesn’t the bacteria that makes nitrogen into ammonia also use water in that reaction?

And thanks for the quick response

[limpet chicken]

I am not sure about zinc nitride, I just happened to know that HgN is a primary explosive somewhere along the lines of silver fulminate/azide in power.

I am unsure of the actual reaction, where nitrifying bacteria are concerned, but if you are after culturing the lil buggers, try slicing open the root nodules in leguminous plants, thats where the bacteria will be found.

Billnotgatez, off topic I know, but you wouldn't mind telling me where you get zinc wool would you? I could make pretty good use of the stuff myself, but I haven't ever seen it sold.

Edit: fixed mispelling of "bugger"

[billnotgatez]

Sorry - I was just being hypothetical
I do not have a source for zinc wool
But, Google gave some sites located in UK
Regards,
Bill

[billnotgatez]

I found this on the Internet
“Ammonia is shipped as a liquified gas under its own vapor pressure of 114 psig.”

What I can not find is a good phase diagrams that is readable, but I think that at 114 psig and room temp it seems water would be a liquid and carbon dioxide would be a gas. Can somebody confirm this?

If I ever do another project using JavaScript for a grade, I will try to make an interactive applet that gives information on phases of various gases given temp and pressure. Some of the items I would make it for would be water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, and some of the organic compounds.

Regards,
Bill

[Donaldson Tan]

i think you need a few things:

1. a multi-dimension array to hold specific coordinate along the phase equilibria graph.
2. a javascript extrapolating code to make estimates of P & T between known coordinates for state equilibria to exist.
3. a javascript function that can identify the corresponding state given P & T
4. a data booklet that list physical properties of common substances.

[billnotgatez]

Greetings geodome and all,

I agree about the programming steps you suggested.

Do you know what phase water and carbon dioxide would be in at 70 F and 114 psig?

Regards,
Bill

[billnotgatez]

Is there a reaction with a solution or liquid that takes up gaseous nitrogen at room temperature?

[Dude]

I'm not aware of any chemicals that will react with nitrogen at room temperature.  It might be possible to adsorb some nitrogen at room temperature with molecular sieve type materials.

[Dude]

Oops.  I stand corrected.  This site indicates that lithium will react with nitrogen at room temperature.

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch10/group5.html

[billnotgatez]

As an aside
The site
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch10/contents.html
which has a link to the site Dude posted has lots of information on general chemistry.

unfortunately it has some broken links

[billnotgatez]

Below is a from the Internet
--------------------
In spite of the fact that the N2 molecule is unreactive, compounds containing nitrogen exist for virtually every element in the periodic table except those in Group VIIIA (He, Ne, Ar, and so on). This can be explained in two ways. First, N2 becomes significantly more reactive as the temperature increases. At high temperatures, nitrogen reacts with hydrogen to form ammonia and with oxygen to form nitrogen oxide.
Second, a number of catalysts found in nature overcome the inertness of N2 at low temperature.
------------------

below is my ponderings
Thinking about the above we can see that “fixing” bacteria falls into the second category. Turning to the first category one must think of lithium at room temperature as reaching the threshold of high temperature so that it reacts with nitrogen.
What I know wonder is how to release the nitrogen from the lithium again. Do we just cool it or do we heat it more or do we find a catalyst to facilitate the reverse reaction.

On a separate note - I wonder what other processes there are from category two other than “fixing” bacteria,

[jdurg]

Below is a from the Internet
--------------------
In spite of the fact that the N2 molecule is unreactive, compounds containing nitrogen exist for virtually every element in the periodic table except those in Group VIIIA (He, Ne, Ar, and so on). This can be explained in two ways. First, N2 becomes significantly more reactive as the temperature increases. At high temperatures, nitrogen reacts with hydrogen to form ammonia and with oxygen to form nitrogen oxide.
Second, a number of catalysts found in nature overcome the inertness of N2 at low temperature.
------------------

below is my ponderings
Thinking about the above we can see that “fixing” bacteria falls into the second category. Turning to the first category one must think of lithium at room temperature as reaching the threshold of high temperature so that it reacts with nitrogen.
What I know wonder is how to release the nitrogen from the lithium again. Do we just cool it or do we heat it more or do we find a catalyst to facilitate the reverse reaction.

On a separate note - I wonder what other processes there are from category two other than “fixing” bacteria,

That's kind of like saying 'how do we get the chlorine back out of sodium chloride?  Do we just lower the temperature/increase the temperature?'    Lithium is a small atom and its nucleus isn't that heavily protected.  (It only has three electrons floating around it).  The nitrogen is able to 'see' this nucleus and becomes attracted to it.  At room temperature, the energy saved by lithium in regards to bonding with the nitrogen is fairly large.  As a result, lithium will react directly with nitrogen as it's energetically more stable as lithium nitride.