Curated playlist
Industrial gases
- NitrogenNitrogen, the gas in most of every breath, killed two shuttle technicians in 1981. It fills about 78% of Earth's air.
- MethaneMethane, the simplest organic compound, fills lakes on Titan, a moon of Saturn.
- Carbon monoxideCarbon monoxide, a deadly gas, is also made by your own body. It works as a signal between cells, a neurotransmitter.
- ArgonArgon fills about one in every hundred breaths, yet no one knew it was there until 1894.
- Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley isolated oxygen but never accepted what it meant.
- ChlorineChlorine is element number 17, a yellow-green gas with the chemical symbol Cl. In 2022 the world produced an estimated 97 million tonnes of it. Much of that gas never touches a swimming pool or a tap. It is turned into plastics and other…
- XenonXenon, a gas long thought unable to bond with anything, formed a compound in 1962.
- Hydrogen sulfideHydrogen sulfide is a colorless, flammable and toxic gas, and the human nose is astonishingly good at catching it. In odor tests with a human panel, half of the people could tell that something was in the air at just 0.47 parts per…
- AmmoniaIn 2021, factories around the world produced 235 million tonnes of ammonia. That is an enormous weight for a gas best known for its sharp, pungent smell. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, yet its reach extends far beyond the…
- RadonRadon is an invisible gas, and in 1984 it was the hidden cause of a puzzle at the Limerick Generating Station in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Stringent radiation testing at the new plant found that a construction engineer named Stanley…
- Nitrous oxideNitrous oxide, also called dinitrogen oxide, dinitrogen monoxide, laughing gas or simply nitrous, is a colourless gas with a faint, slightly sweet scent and taste. By 2020, every billion molecules of air held 333 of its molecules, and that…