Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Bai Rui

Doctoral candidate of 2022, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Training unit: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

I don't know if you have ever thought about this question in the process of learning chemistry:

Oxygen-containing ions, such as carbonate (CO32-), sulfate (SO42-), phosphate (PO43-), etc., are named after the kind of atoms in the center of the ion.

Source of schematic diagram of carbonate, sulfate and phosphate ions: wikipedia, why is NO3-, which is also containing oxygen, called nitrate instead of nitrogen?

Schematic diagram of nitrate ion | Source: wikipedia is ashamed to say that it is only recently that the editor realized this problem after studying chemistry for so many years. But now that we have asked the question, we need to find the answer.

This does not check the data do not know, a look at the information startled, seems to be a simple question, behind actually hiding a lot of unknown stories.

So today we're going to talk about it:

The discovery and initial naming of nitrogen in order to answer this question clearly, we must first have an in-depth understanding of nitrogen.

Nitrogen was first discovered by Scottish doctor Daniel Rutherford (Daniel Rutherford) in 1772. Note that this is not Ernest Rutherford (Ernest Rutherford) doing alpha particle scattering experiments.

Portrait of Daniel Rutherford | Source: reference [2] Rutherford put mice, burning candles and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution in an airtight container, and then observed that the mice died and the candle went out, but there was still a lot of gas in the container. He realized that it was a component of a gas that had never been found before and could not provide breathing, so he called it noxious air, meaning poisonous gas.

Until 1789, Antoine Laurent Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, a famous chemist and later known as "the father of modern chemistry", defined the concept of elements in his book Trait é l é mentaire de Chimie, classified the common chemical substances at that time, summed up 33 elements (although some of them were actually compounds), and got the table shown below. This is the world's first list of modern chemical elements.

The world's first list of modern chemical elements | Source: the red-framed part of the table in Resources [3] is Lavissier's naming and interpretation of nitrogen. The word azote comes from the Greek word azotikos, meaning "inanimate", because in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen, animals die and flames go out.

Some friends here may ask, now the English name of nitrogen element is nitrogen, and the gap between nitrogen and this azote is a little big. I know you're in a hurry, but don't worry. Nitrogen will be on the stage soon.

Saltpeter and nitrogen in the second year after Lavasil proposed the name Azote, another French chemist, Jean-Antoine Chaptal (Jean-Antoine Chaptal), proposed a new name for nitrogen element-nitrog è ne in his book Chemical elements de chimie.

Introduction to the chapter title of "nitrogen" | Source: reference [4] the word can be seen as a combination of the French word nitre (meaning "saltpetre") and the French suffix-g è ne (meaning "production"). Chaptal believes that nitrogen is a component of nitric acid, and nitric acid is obtained through saltpeter, so nitrogen can be understood as "produced by saltpeter", or nitrog è ne.

Maybe some friends don't know much about saltpetre, so the editor will simply popularize science here.

Saltpeter, also known as anti-stone, fire nitrate, tooth nitrate, is a natural mineral, the main component is potassium nitrate (KNO3). Other nitrate minerals such as Chilean saltpetre (sodium nitrate, NaNO3) and Norwegian saltpetre (calcium nitrate, Ca (NO3) 2) are sometimes called saltpetre.

Saltpeter mine | Picture Source: Internet Chaptal's so-called "nitric acid is obtained from saltpetre", which is actually a mixture of Chilean saltpetre and concentrated sulfuric acid to get nitric acid. Due to the strong volatility of nitric acid, the mixed nitric acid is separated from the system in the form of steam, and the chemical reaction equilibrium moves positively. Finally, the nitric acid with high purity can be obtained by condensing the collected steam.

OK, let's go back to the word nitrog è ne. In fact, it is not difficult to see that the English word nitrogen, which describes nitrogen, has evolved from the French word nitrog è ne.

Since the word itself means "produced by saltpetre", it makes sense for NO3- to be called nitrate, and the problem raised above seems to have been solved. But it also raises a new question: where did the name "nitrogen" come from?

How did nitrogen translate into "nitrogen"? To clarify the problem of translation, it is necessary to trace back to the time when the knowledge of western chemistry was first introduced into China.

The first Chinese translation of nitrogen, which appeared in 1855, was proposed by a British missionary, Benjamin Hobson (Benjamin Hobson, Chinese name: Hexin) in his Chinese book, the New compilation of Cultural relics. We can see from the catalogue that he translated "nitrogen" into "stale".

"A new episode of Bowu" catalogue | Source: reference [5] Hexin wrote in the book: "those who are indifferent are indifferent and useless, so they can lighten the intensity of life; they are not good enough to keep in good health, and the strength is not enough to burn the fire."

From such a paragraph, it is not difficult to see that the reason why Hexin is translated as "light" is to express the meaning of "dilution". Due to the existence of this gas component, the concentration of oxygen is "diluted".

In fact, the translation name "nitrogen" we use today is the "light" in the translation of Hexin, but in order to reflect the fact that its element is a gas, the three points of water is changed into an air prefix.

Source of description of "nitrogen" in "Bowu New Edition": reference [5] some friends may wonder that the meaning of the word Bowu itself is very clear, why create a set of completely irrelevant statements to translate instead of literal translation?

The editor is actually very confused about this problem. In fact, in the same period, in addition to Hexin, some other foreign missionaries, Chinese chemists and some domestic academic organizations have proposed different Chinese translations of nitrogen, some of which are shown in the following figure.

Source: reference [6] it is not difficult to find that there are "nitrate" in accordance with the meaning of the English word, and there are even new words created to reflect the gas characteristics. "

". In the editor's opinion,"

"this translation is the most exquisite.

But in the end, people at that time chose nitrogen. Perhaps it is because "light" is preconceived as the first translation name to appear; perhaps it is because thinking was restricted at that time; or when Chinese and Western cultures collide, we are more willing to use our own inherent culture or thinking to understand a foreign culture.

Looking back again at the beginning of the problem, it turns out that the problem is not in "nitrate", but in the translation of "nitrogen". This seems to be a small translation problem, but it leads to a big misunderstanding.

Therefore, to learn knowledge, we should really go back to the source and not float on the surface.

Reference:

[1] Nitrogen- Wikipedia

[2] Daniel Rutherford-Wikipedia

[3] de Lavoisier A L. Train é l é mentaire de chimie [M]. France, 1789.

[4] Chaptal J A. É l é mens de chimie [M]. Montpellier, 1790.

[5] he Xin. A new edition of Bowu [M]. Shanghai: Mohai Library, 1855.

[6] Zhang Xun. Translation of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen: 1896-1944 [J]. Studies on the History of Natural Science, 2002, 21 (2): 123,134.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ID:cas-iop). Author: rookie who doesn't like physics.

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