{"id":45921,"date":"2025-04-22T13:24:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T07:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=45921"},"modified":"2025-05-28T13:25:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T07:55:37","slug":"nitrogen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/nitrogen\/","title":{"rendered":"Nitrogen"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Nitrogen Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>India, the world\u2019s second-largest emitter of N\u2082O after China, faces climate risks as N\u2082O has 300 times the global warming potential of CO\u2082.<\/p>\n<h2>About Nitrogen<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Nitrogen<\/strong>\u00a0is the\u00a0<strong>most abundant atmospheric gas<\/strong>, constituting\u00a0<strong>~78%<\/strong>\u00a0of Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nitrogen is vital<\/strong>\u00a0for forming\u00a0<strong>DNA, ATP (cellular energy currency)<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>proteins<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>chlorophyll<\/strong>, and acts as a\u00a0<strong>neurotransmitter<\/strong>\u00a0via\u00a0<strong>nitric oxide (NO)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Nitrogen Cycle: Natural Balancing Act<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Atmospheric nitrogen (N\u2082)<\/strong>\u00a0is\u00a0<strong>inert and unusable<\/strong>\u00a0by plants or animals.<\/li>\n<li>Plants rely on\u00a0<strong>diazotrophs<\/strong>\u00a0(N-fixing bacteria) through\u00a0<strong>symbiotic association<\/strong>\u00a0(e.g., in\u00a0<strong>legumes<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nitrifying bacteria<\/strong>\u00a0convert ammonia into\u00a0<strong>nitrites (NO\u2082\u207b)<\/strong>\u00a0and then\u00a0<strong>nitrates (NO\u2083\u207b)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 the form plants can absorb.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Nitrification<\/strong>: Ammonia \u2192 Nitrites \u2192 Nitrates (plant-usable form).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Denitrification<\/strong>\u00a0returns excess nitrates back to the atmosphere, maintaining the\u00a0<strong>natural nitrogen cycle<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Haber-Bosch Process<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Developed in the early<strong>\u00a020th century<\/strong>, allowed\u00a0<strong>industrial fixation<\/strong>\u00a0of nitrogen to produce\u00a0<strong>ammonia<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Uses\u00a0<strong>fossil fuels<\/strong>, high\u00a0<strong>heat and pressure<\/strong>, and an\u00a0<strong>iron catalyst<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Enabled\u00a0<strong>synthetic fertiliser revolution<\/strong>\u00a0\u2192 contributed to\u00a0<strong>Green Revolution<\/strong>\u00a0and exponential\u00a0<strong>population growth<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Environmental Risks of Excess Nitrogen (Latent Time-Bomb)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reactive nitrogen<\/strong>\u00a0(ammonia, nitrate, nitrous oxide) is now\u00a0<strong>overproduced<\/strong>\u00a0through\u00a0<strong>chemical fertilisers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>80% of applied nitrogen<\/strong>\u00a0is lost to the\u00a0<strong>environment<\/strong>\u00a0via leaching and emissions, causing:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Eutrophication<\/strong>\u00a0of water bodies \u2192\u00a0<strong>Algal blooms<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Dead Zones<\/strong>\u00a0(e.g., Gulf of Mexico).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Soil acidification<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>air pollution<\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0<strong>NOx emissions<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Formation of\u00a0<strong>ground-level ozone<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>acid rain<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>N\u2082O (Nitrous oxide)<\/strong>\u00a0is now the\u00a0<strong>third most potent greenhouse gas<\/strong>\u00a0after CO\u2082 and CH\u2084.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-9ao8nt\">\n<div class=\"ck-content\">\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/is-nitrogen-the-building-block-of-life-a-latent-time-bomb\/article69401531.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nitrogen is vital for forming DNA, ATP (cellular energy currency), proteins, chlorophyll, and acts as a neurotransmitter via nitric oxide (NO).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":45922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}