What Household Items Contain Nitrogen?
Household items that contain nitrogen include ammonia, indoor plant soil, food items, detergents, fertilizers for gardening and toothpaste. Nitrogen is also abundant in the air on Earth and makes up 78.1 percent of the air by volume on the planet.
Nitrogen can come in both liquid and gas forms. In some forms, nitrogen can be lethal and cause massive explosions while in other forms, nitrogen can be harmless such as in plant oil or in the air that humans breathe on Earth.
Nitrogen was first discovered in 1772 by Daniel Rutherford, a physician and chemist. At first, it was thought that nitrogen meant that there could not be life present because when Rutherford took the oxygen and the carbon dioxide out of the air, he found that animals could not survive. They did not need the nitrogen to breathe, but they did need the oxygen and the carbon dioxide. Later, it would be discovered that nitrogen actually existed inside of all living organisms. In fact, the nitrogen cycle is a crucial part of the way that nature works.
When it comes to household products, nitrogen is most often found in ammonia. Ammonia is created by using the Haber Process with nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. Ammonia is used in plastic, fertilizer, household cleaning products and livestock feed.
