Nitrogen

(in 132 products)

1. Packaging Gas / Propellants - Packaging gas used as protection and inhibition of unwanted chemical reactions. Propellants used as a carrier gas to deliver other ingredients

Nitrogen is the most common pure element in the earth, making up 78.1% of the entire volume of the atmosphere. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions. Many industrially important compounds, such as ammonia, nitric acid, organic nitrates (propellants and explosives), and cyanides, contain nitrogen.

Nitrogen is commercially recovered from the air as ammonia , which is produced by combining nitrogen in the atmosphere with hydrogen from natural gas. Ammonia is converted to other nitrogen compounds, the most important of which are urea, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, and ammonium sulfate. With the exception of nitric acid , these compounds are widely used as fertilizer.

In food industry using as food additive (E941), it is used as a packaging gas that displaces oxygen in foods to inhibit the growth of bacteria which cause food spoilage, and to reduce the speed of oxidation. Due to it's low solubility in water, it helps prevent package collapse. It is also used as an aerosol spray propellant.

It is approved to use as food additive in EU.

1. PubChem: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/947

1. EU Approved Food Additive [2018]

- E941

2. Canada List of Permitted Food Additives

- List 8 - Nitrogen

3. US FDA Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) Food Substances (21 CFR 184) [2017]

- § 184.1540 - Nitrogen