Protoxide of Nitrogen

Showing that 1 eq. of ammonia and 1 eq. of nitric acid yield 3 eq. water, and 2 eq. protoxide of nitrogen. 

This compound is a gas, colourless, and transparent. It has a faint smell and a sweetish taste. It is slowly absorbed by water, and therefore cannot be long kept over that liquid. Its specific gravity is 1.527. It may be liquefied by a pressure of 50 atmospheres. 

Protoxide of nitrogen is neutral or indifferent, and has hardly any tendency to combine with other bodies. According to Pelouze, however,it combines with the saltsof sulphurous acid, or sulphites. 

Nitric Oxide Nitrous Gas.—Best obtained by the action of copper clippings on moderately strong nitric acid, in the apparatus, p. 46. The metal is dissolved with effervescence, and the gas may be collected and preserved over water. 

If a few drops of bisulphuret of carbon be added to a jar of this gas, and a light applied to the mixture, it bums with a bright blue flame. 

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A still more intense degree of cold may bo attained by the rapid evaporation of liquids, such as bisulphide of carbon, ether, protoxide of nitrogen, and solid carbonic acid gas. By employing a bath of carbonic acid and ether in vacua, Faraday reduced the temperature... 

Nitrate of ammonia crystallises in prisms like those of nitrate of potash. It is used in the preparation of the protoxide of nitrogen or laughing gas. FormulaNH O, NO or NH, NO,. 

The molybdenum and tungsten contents were determined by atomic absorption spectrometry in areducing flame of acetylene-nitrogen protoxid at the Service Central d1 Analyse du C.N.R.S. (Lyon). 

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