Page 108 - Encyclopedia of Chemical Compounds 3 Vols

H

N
H H

OTHER NAMES:
None
Ammonia
FORMULA:
NH 3
ELEMENTS:
Nitrogen, hydrogen
OVERVIEW
COMPOUND TYPE: KE
Inorganic base Ammonia (uh-MOH-nyah) is a colorless gas with a strong,
suffocating odor. It was present in the primordial (original)
STATE:
Y
atmosphere of the Earth. Scientists believe that it may have
Gas F
been the source of nitrogen for the earliest forms of life.
MOLECULAR WEIGHT: A Ammonia was the first chemical compound to be found
17.03 g/mol C in interstellar space, the space between stars. It is a major
component of the atmosphere of many planets in our solar
MELTING POINT: T
system.
77.7 C( 108 F) S
Early chemists learned to produce ammonia from animal
BOILING POINT:
parts, such as the horns of deer. But it was the English
33.35 C( 28.03 F)
chemist and physicist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) who first
SOLUBILITY:
collected and studied the pure gas. In 1785, the French che-
Very soluble in cold
mist Claude-Louis Berthollet (1748–1822) determined the cor-
water; soluble in
rect chemical formula for the gas, NH 3 .
alcohol, ether, and
many organic solvents In 2004, American companies produced 10,762,000
metric tons (11,863,000 short tons) of ammonia, making it
the tenth highest-volume chemical made in the United
States. Only ten years earlier, it had ranked number 5 on

CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS 57