Magnesium nitride

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Magnesium nitride, which possesses the chemical formula Mg3N2, is an inorganic compound of magnesium and nitrogen. At room temperature and pressure it is a greenish yellow powder. When measuring the boiling point of magnesium, Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville and Henri Caron identified that molten magnesium they distilled covered itself by "small colorless and transparent needles which are destroyed fairly quickly by transforming into ammonia and magnesia". In their 1857 publication the chemists interpreted it as a likely nitride similar to those discovered by Friedrich Wöhler and Heinrich Rose. It was indeed confirmed in 1862 when Friedrich Briegleb and Johann Georg Anton Geuther synthesized the compound on purpose and first studied it. Magnesium nitride may be prepared by passing dry, very pure nitrogen over heated magnesium at 800–850 °C (1,470–1,560 °F) for 90 minutes: Or by passing dry ammonia over heated magnesium at 800–850 °C (1,470–1,560 °F) for 4 hours: This second method is preferred despite the additional time required due to the difficulty of fully purifying nitrogen gas to prevent the formation of unwanted oxides. Magnesium nitride reacts with water to produce magnesium hydroxide and ammonia gas, as do many metal nitrides. In fact, when magnesium is burned in air, some magnesium nitride is formed in addition to the principal product, magnesium oxide. Thermal decomposition of magnesium nitride at 700–1,500 °C (1,292–2,732 °F) gives magnesium and nitrogen gas. At high pressures, the stability and formation of new nitrogen-rich nitrides (N/Mg ratio equal or greater to one) were suggested and later discovered.