Nitrous oxide

• The nitrous oxide which is commonly known as laughing gas.
• Nitrous oxide is inflammable gas colourless in the room temperature.
• A scientist named Humphry Davy, gives nitrous oxide the name of laughing gas. It is given so because if this inhaled then it caused an effect of immense happiness and pleasure.
• Nitrous oxide is having a sweet odour. It is also non-toxic gas. World health organisation referred to this gas as one of the safest gas that can be used in the human being.
• Nitrous oxide is obtained in the industry by heating the ammonium nitrate in the temperature of 250∘C, this compound gets decomposed into nitrous oxide and water vapour.

Uses:

• This gas has been allowed to be used in the food additives .It is used in the cooking sprays and the whipped cream.
• Cooking spray is made up of various combinations of different types of oils and thus used as propellant. The whipped cream which is made up of nitrous oxide are quite unstable.
• The gas is used because it is extremely soluble in the fatty compounds and due to which in case of aerosol whipped cream.
• It gets dissolved in the fatty cream when present in the can, when it leaves the can it becomes gaseous and thus produced foam.
• Nitrous oxide as anaesthetic cannot be used alone because it is weak anaesthetic.
• It is used as a carrier for other strong anaesthetic compounds which are used in the medical field.
• It is also used in the time of childbirth , oral surgery ,trauma and acute coronary syndrome .

Source: NCERT Class 12