2019 has been declared by UNESCO as the Year of the Periodic Table. To celebrate, we are releasing a series of blogs about our favourite elements and their importance to the chemical industry. Today’s blog is about the various uses of nitrogen.

Nitrogen – an imperative part of DNA

The polymer that makes up the genetic code of is a sequence of nitrogen bases laid out on a backbone of sugar and phosphate molecules and blended into a double helix. 

The nitrogen bases are translated into proteins and enzymes which regulate most our system’s biochemical reactions. 

Explosive potential

RDX is a nitrogen explosive. This means its explosive properties are primarily caused by the presence of many nitrogen–nitrogen bonds, which are extremely unstable, especially as nitrogen atoms want to come together to produce nitrogen gas due to the triple bond. 

Ultimately, the more nitrogen–nitrogen bonds a molecule has, the more explosive it is. RDX is normally combined with other chemicals to make it less sensitive or less likely to explode.

One of the most powerful explosive chemicals is PETN, containing nitro groups and nitroglycerin in dynamite. Despite its powerful explosions, the chemical rarely will detonate alone. PETN was used frequently during World War II, whereby PETN was used to create exploding bridgewire detonators, using electric currents for detonations.

Among the least stable explosives is aziroazide azide,  with 14 unstable nitrogen bonds, most of them bonded into unstable nitrogen–nitrogen bonds. Touching or handling this chemical can cause it to detonate, making it one of the most dangerous non-nuclear chemicals.

Nitrogen and plants

Nitrogen plays a significant role for plants to keep healthy. Plants usually contain 3-4% nitrogen in their above-ground tissues. Nitrogen is a major component of chlorophyll which plants use to capture sunlight energy to produce sugars, and a major component of amino acids, which are the building blocks of life.

Overall, nitrogen is a significant component to DNA, a key nutrient to plants, and the uses of nitrogen in everyday life span across various chemical industries including the production of fertilisers and explosives.