How metals work together to weaken hardy nitrogen-nitrogen bonds

Nitrogen, an element that is essential for all living cells, makes up about 78 percent of Earth's atmosphere. However, most organisms cannot make use of this nitrogen until it is converted into ammonia. Until humans invented ...

Plasma-produced gas helps protect plants against pathogens

The flash of lightning and the dance of auroras contain a fourth state of matter known as plasma, which researchers have harnessed to produce a gas that may activate plant immunity against wide-spread diseases.

Uranium 'breaks the rules again'

Work led by the research group of Professor Steve Liddle and published in the prestigious journal Nature Chemistry has reported a uranium dinitrogen molecule that, according to basic chemical theory, should not exist. The ...

Fuel cells in bacteria

The exchange of nitrogen between the atmosphere and organic matter is crucial for life on Earth because nitrogen is a major component of essential molecules such as proteins and DNA. One major route for this exchange, discovered ...

Inert nitrogen forced to react with itself

Constituting over 78 % of the air we breathe, nitrogen is the element found the most often in its pure form on earth. The reason for the abundance of elemental nitrogen is the incredible stability and inertness of dinitrogen ...

Nitrogen fixation in ambient conditions

Abundant in the atmosphere, nitrogen is rarely used in the industrial production of chemicals. The most important process using nitrogen is the synthesis of ammonia used for the preparation of agricultural fertilizers.

How much greenhouse gas do tropical soils emit?

Nitrogen changes form as it cycles between air, soil, and life. Soils, for example, emit nitrogen either as inert dinitrogen (N2), which dominates our atmosphere, or as nitric oxide (NO) or nitrous oxide (N2O), the greenhouse ...