Curated category
E-number additives
- NitrogenTwo technicians walked into a confined space inside the Space Shuttle's mobile launcher platform on the 19th of March 1981, shortly before the program's…
- OxygenOxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust, yet for most of human history nobody knew it existed. It carries the symbol O and the atomic number 8, a…
- Sodium carbonateSodium carbonate goes by a crowd of names. Washing soda. Soda ash. Sal soda. Soda crystals. Each name points to a different life this single white salt has…
- AluminiumAluminium is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, making up 8.23% of it by mass, yet for most of human history no one had ever seen a piece of it.
- Calcium carbonateCalcium carbonate is one of those substances that surrounds us so completely that it becomes invisible. It is the mineral inside your eggshell and the stone…
- Carbon dioxideCarbon dioxide makes up just 428 parts per million of Earth's air, about 0.043% as of July 2025. That is a trace, a rounding error in a breath.
- HeliumHelium hid inside sunlight before anyone found it on Earth. On the 18th of August 1868, during a total solar eclipse seen from Guntur, India, the French…
- HydrogenHydrogen carries the symbol H and the atomic number 1, the very first entry in the catalogue of the elements. It is the lightest of them all, and the most…
- ArgonArgon makes up nearly one percent of the air you are breathing right now. Symbol Ar, atomic number 18, it sits quietly in group 18 of the periodic table…
- Fatty acidA fatty acid is a carboxylic acid carrying a long tail of carbon atoms, a chain that is either saturated or carries kinks where its bonds double up.
- SilverSilver carries the chemical symbol Ag and the atomic number 47. That symbol comes from argentum, the Latin word for the metal, and it hides a small mystery.
- Acetic acidAcetic acid has been inside a bottle of vinegar on your kitchen shelf for as long as vinegar has existed, which is at least 10,000 years.
- GoldGold carries the chemical symbol Au, from the Latin aurum, and the atomic number 79. It is one of the least reactive elements known, sitting second from the…
- Sulfuric acidSulfuric acid sits inside almost every lead-acid battery ever made, and without it the global fertilizer industry would stop within a season.