NSCI 1322 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Denitrifying Bacteria, Daniel Rutherford, Mass Spectrometry
12 Jan 2017
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Like the carbon family of elements, the group 5a elements show the distinct trend of increasing metallic character as you go from top to bottom of the column. The first members, nitrogen and phosphorus, are nonmetallic; arsenic and antimony are metalloids; bismuth is a metal. As expected for a second-period element, nitrogen is in many respects different from the other elements in its group. You can see this in the formulas of the elements and compounds. Nitrogen exists in many molecular compounds in a variety of oxidation states. The element nitrogen is crucial to life: it is a component of all proteins, which are involved in almost every biochemical process that occurs in living organisms. Most of the available nitrogen on earth, however, is present as nitrogen gas in the atmosphere. Di(cid:374)itroge(cid:374), also si(cid:373)pl(cid:455) (cid:272)alled (cid:862)(cid:374)itroge(cid:374),(cid:863) has (cid:272)olle(cid:272)ted i(cid:374) the at(cid:373)osphere (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause of its relative chemical unreactivity.
