Ammonia was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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LD50
The LD50 is given as 0.015 ml per kg, which is far too low. The figure 0.015 would make sense if it referred to ml of liquid ammonia, or mg of ammonia, but not ml of gaseous ammonia. Someone knowledgeable in editing chemboxes should correct this to mg per kg or indicate that it refers to liquid ammonia, rather than the gaseous form ammonia has under standard conditions. Ammonia gas is about 1000 times less dense than liquid ammonia. The ICSC0414 data sheet cited farther down in the chembox gives a permissible level of 14 mg per cubic meter, which is equivalent to 0.014 mg per ml. CharlesHBennett (talk) 22:47, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't able to find a human LD50 and the permissible level isn't really equivalent. I substituted a rat oral LD50 from a gas supplier SDS. Reconrabbit19:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Flash point
Most sources agree that ammonia does not have a traditional flash point, as it is a gas a standard temperature and pressure and the definition of flash point relies on the temperature at which liquid fumes become flammable. What is currently listed is the critical temperature, which is the temperature above which ammonia cannot form a liquid. The more relevant standard for ammonia flammability would be the lower explosive limit, which is the concentration in air at which ammonia becomes ignitable. 2601:281:8000:78E0:309D:DD9D:FB1F:A521 (talk) 18:34, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Liquid section had a sentence that stated the liquid could be carried around a lab without refrigeration or a pressure vessel. This seems very unlikely considering that even with its high enthalpy of vaporization every source I can find says that liquid anhydrous ammonia vaporizes when exposed to air. I changed the section to reflect this - did it mean aqueous ammonia? Reconrabbit20:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Liquid ammonia, like every liquid, requires energy to evaporate. This energy can come from the surrounding environment, like from air, water, a flame, an electric heating element, etc., or from the liquid itself, such as when the pressure of compressed, liquid ammonia is reduced, it will evaporate and cool down, because its heat is used to evaporate itself. So, yes, liquid ammonia will evaporate if it's in an environment that's warmer than its boiling point of -33 C (at 1 atm, I guess), including air. But the rate of evaporation depends on the rate of heat transfer. In a well insulated dewar this will be slow, but if you mix it well with lots of air by spraying it into air, it will be fast. Intermediately, e.g. in a test tube it will evaporate, but slow enough to carry it around in a lab. The vapors are pungent and even lethal in sufficient amount, so don't inhale them too much. Here's a video where nilered is handling liquid ammonia he created: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHokrNS1ask&t=535s
In a pressurized container liquid ammonia may be at ambient temperature at the corresponding vapor presssure, e.g. 1003 kPa (10.03 bar) at 25 C (Ammonia (data page)#Vapor–liquid equilibrium data). Opening a valve, especially below the liquid surface, will eject liquid ammonia due to its pressure. Outside the container the vapor pressure of ammonia (10 bar) is now above ambient pressure (~1 bar), so it flash evaporates instantly. As mentioned, this evaporation requires energy, which comes from the ammonia itself now. It cools down instantly, cooling down, and if the ammonia wasn't hot enough (have enough energy) in the container, it will cool down to its boiling point corresponding to the ambient pressure (-33 C) where some ammonia will remain liquid till it absorbs the remaining energy needed for full evaporation from the environment. If you're not in a position to shut the valve quickly, run (upwind)!
I guess the sources you found were about this flash evaporation, where all or most of liquefied, pressurized ammonia evaporates instantly. This is mostly due to exposure to lower pressure rather than to exposure to air.Darsie42 (talk) 13:35, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We use liquid ammonia with no external cooling. In fact, in our teach lab, I insisted on not using coolants, which condense water that can kill sodium-ammonia. Arthur Birch's group (Birch reduction) measured out ammonia with big graduated cylinders. It's a little weird but the heat of evaporation is so high that these operations work fine. We just dont remove the thick crust of frost that collects on the containers.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:30, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting to hear! If I've mischaracterized liquid ammonia in the article based on the sources then please correct me; I have never once seen liquid ammonia handled at my institution outside of the aqueous form. Reconrabbit15:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ammonia is an “inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3”. You’ll find this stuff in fertilizer. Thanks, Kurnahusa (talk) 19:26, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
