How and where would someone obtain liquid nitrogen?
In the United States, Air Products or Praxair are manufacturers and distributors.Since I have dealt with Liquid nitrogen on many occasions, I feel that a warning is necessary! This material can be deadly if precautions are not taken. It poses the hazards of being a cryogenic fluid and an asphyxiating gas. As a cryogen, it and anything it is in contact with become extremely cold. Dangerously so if you don't know what you are doing. Plastics will shatter like glass. Rubber will become as hard as metal. The outer surface of containers will become so cold that to touch it is instant frostbite. This is not the kind of cold you are used to any more than a hand warmer is to a blow torch. You might want to read up on Cryogenics.In addition, any attempt to contain it will cause the container to explode. Even a tank rated at several thousand pounds per square inch can explode. The liquid will convert to a gas at room temperature since it is (far) above its Critical point.tankIn addition, the gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. If it leaks into a room or evaporates from the liquid, unless you have an O2 meter, you will not even know that it is there.I investigated an incident where two workers were exposed to N2 while wearing air masks. A one-way check valve failed and both were immediately knocked out. Very fortunately, fellow workers were watching the operations on closed circuit TV and saw them go down. The went in, took them outside and they were quickly resuscitated. They described working in a brightly lit very quiet room, when the channel changed and they were on their backs in a grassy field, very cold, with people shouting and ambulance sirens screaming. They said that there was no hint or warning of impending danger. It was like watching a sailing regatta, when you change the channel and there is a NASCAR race at full speed!So be warned: There will be no warning if you get exposed to N2! Be careful, or be dead.
Liquid nitrogen vs. magma?
The liquid nitrogen would evaporate in a huge cloud and the magma would be relatively untouched. The reason is that the latent heat of vaporization of nitrogen is small compared to the heat capacity of a solid. I'm going to convert your example to metric units just to make it easier for me. 10 liters of liquid nitrogen (LN2) has a mass of around 8 kg. The latent heat of vaporization of nitrogen is around 200 kJ/kg (this is readily available using google). So the vaporization of 10 L of LN2 would take 1600 kJ of energy. The heat capacity of magma is 1.7 kJ/(kg-K) (see reference below). 10 L of magma would have a mass of 25 kg. so there is around 40 kJ/K in 10 L of magma. For grins, assume the magma starts out at 1500 K, it would take a 40 K cooling for the magma to deliver 1600 kJ of energy to the LN2, leaving the magma at at toasty 1460 K, which is a very small change in the overall temperature. You would be much better off throwing water on the magma, water has a much higher latent heat of vaporization, over an order of magnitude larger than LN2. Heat capacity of magma: http://books.google.com/books?id=NmvMrnx...
Where to get liquid nitrogen?
You probably do not have anything you can use to make your own liquid nitrogen (LN2). You can buy it from specialty gas suppliers but they probably sell it in larger quantities than you need (unless you are making many gallons). LN2 is used in many different places. Hospitals and some factories use LN2. Universities often have laboratories where they use LN2 for cooling scientific instruments. If you find a place that is willing to give you or sell you a small quantity (it used to be only about as expensive as beer), you will need a very good thermos bottle, not one of the plastic ones but a real "old fashioned" thermos with a mirrored glass vacuum bottle. If you have a big one of these, one that will hold a quart of hot coffee or more, you can probably store the LN2 overnight and still have some left. Be SURE you do NOT screw the lid on tight. When a little bit of LN2 goes from liquid to gas (boiling), it produces a large volume of gas. If you screw the lid on tight, it will build up pressure and will probably explode. If you use a cheap plastic thermos (without the real vacuum bottle), it might keep LN2 for an hour or two, depending on how big it is and how thoroughly you chill it with LN2 before you leave the place that fills it. You will probably need good winter gloves to handle this because, since it is not a very good insulator, the whole plastic thermos will get very cold. It also may break just because plastics shrink a lot when cooled and, since LN2 is so cold, the plastic will shrink a LOT and it becomes very brittle when it is cold. You need to be careful if you do this. Talk to the people who have the LN2 and ask them to review safety considerations.
What would happen if you drank liquid nitrogen?
When I was a 21-year-old college student in Chemistry 101 at Brigham Young University in Idaho, our chemistry professor, himself a brand new instructor, was doing demonstrations with a vat of liquid nitrogen and asked the class if anyone wanted to drink some. I raised my hand.I went to the front of the class, and he poured around a teaspoon of it into a plastic cup and handed it to me. He said the trick was to keep swishing it around in my mouth, not letting it sit too long in any one place. After he was satisfied I knew how to do it, he gave me the go-ahead.This was a pretty small amount - under a thimble full, and it was boiling away in the cup before I had it in my mouth. As it hit my tongue, I immediately began swishing it around. The feeling was very interesting - It felt cold and crunchy, and had no taste. I can assume it was instantly freezing the spit in my mouth as I swished it around, and then, as I kept swishing, it melted again and froze in a different place. It didn’t freeze the tissue of my tongue itself, because the water in my saliva was protecting it.All this time, I was exhaling through my mouth, and there were white clouds of nitrogen with every breath. Not quite like a smoke-breathing dragon, but more than you’d see when exhaling on a really frosty cold day outside.After several seconds of swishing it around, it had almost entirely evaporated, and I instinctually swallowed. I was kinda hoping for one last cloudy white burp, but that was it. By the time I sat down in my seat again, I couldn’t tell anything had happened.Nothing about this was painful, and I didn’t suffer any negative effects.Not sure I’d recommend other people do it without some kind of expert around, and in retrospect that young professor may in fact not have been an ‘expert’, but like I said, no harm done in my case.
Liquid Nitrogen in Nightclubs?
Liquid nitrogen turns into a gas naturally. It dissipates quickly, and helps cool off the sweaty crowd. From about.com http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekl... One of the big advantages of liquid nitrogen is that nothing extra is needed to produce fog. Liquid nitrogen works by evaporating and by cooling the air, causing water to condense. Nitrogen is the primary component of air and is non-toxic. Important Points * Nitrogen fog sinks to the ground. * Smoke can be made by either letting the nitrogen off-gas naturally or by using a fan to blow the 'smoke' where it is wanted. * Liquid nitrogen presents a serious hazard to the user. Although dry ice can give you frostbite, liquid nitrogen is cold enough to cause considerable tissue damage and death. Do not use nitrogen unless you have had the proper cryogenics training. Never use liquid nitrogen in a situation where other people can access the nitrogen source. * As the nitrogen concentration increases, the oxygen concentration in a room decreases, presenting a potential asphyxiation hazard. Liquid nitrogen pool party: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:169549...