On 18 Jan 2010 at 0:10, Michael Porter wrote:
> > I thought nitrogen was inert.
> Nope, nitrogen is not inert.
> It forms covalent bonds with other elements (the "nitrate"
> in sodium nitrate is, for example, is nitrogen bonding
> covalently with oxygen to form the nitrate radical NO3-.
Indeed. As a pure gas, which if memory serves is generally N2 though
I wouldn't swear to it after so many years of breathing the stuff, it
is relatively non-reactive. This is a good thing considering how
much of it there is. But it does combine with other elements,
including oxygen inside engines to produce NOx.
> The "nitrogen-enriched" business sounds like marketing razzmatazz.
Many years ago, seemingly a lifetime ago, I spent a week in Houston
teaching Unix to a collection of folks at Texaco. In our off-time
conversations the subject of gasoline differences between brands came
up. They insisted that real differences did exist. Of course they
felt theirs was better, as was predictable. Perhaps they had bought
into their own company's marketing razzmatazz. But at least they as
insiders believed it.
--
Jim Muller
jimmuller@rcn.com
'80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+
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