Liquid nitrogen - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Liquid nitrogen

Liquid nitrogen is nitrogen at a very low temperature. It is usually produced by a process known as fractional distillation of air. At atmospheric pressure (normal pressure) nitrogen boils at −196 °C (77 K; −321 °F). Nitrogen was first made into a liquid at Jagiellonian University on 15 April 1883. Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski were the first scientists to liquefy nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide.[1] During World War II the production of liquid nitrogen became common.[2] This lowered the cost to produce it. After the war new uses were found for liquid gases. Liquid nitrogen became a major gas in the US.[2]

Liquid nitrogen has a variety of uses, as it is easy to transport, and compact.

References

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  1. Cryosurgery: A Practical Manual, ed. Paola Pasquali (Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2015), p. 7
  2. 2.0 2.1 Ebbe Almqvist, History of Industrial Gases (New York; London: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003), p. 423