Daniel Rutherford

Daniel Rutherford was a Scottish physician and chemist who is credited with the first publication of the isolation of nitrogen as a distinct substance in 1772. He discovered that air was composed of different gases, one of which did not support combustion or life, and he called it "azote" (from the Greek for "no life"). This element was later named nitrogen by French chemist Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal.1

Nitrogen is a nonmetallic element that makes up about 78% of Earth's atmosphere and is essential for all living matter. It is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas. While Rutherford's work focused on the chemical properties of nitrogen, his name is also associated with Ernest Rutherford, a physicist who proposed the nuclear model of the atom, describing it as a dense, positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons.123