Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Experimental Study of the Relationship Between Particle Size and Methane Sorption Capacity in Shale
Published on: August 2, 2018
Experimental detection of tetranitrogen
F Cacace1, G de Petris, A Troiani
1Dipartimento di Studi di Chimica e Tecnologia delle Sostanze Biologicamente Attive, Università di Roma "La Sapienza," Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5-00185 Roma, Italy. fulvio.cacace@uniroma1.it
Abstract:
Tetranitrogen (N4), which has been the subject of great theoretical interest, has been prepared from the N4+ cation and positively detected as a gaseous metastable molecule with a lifetime exceeding 1 microsecond in experiments based on neutralization-reionization mass spectrometry. An examination of the geometry of N4+ and the fragmentation pattern of the (14)N2(15)N2 neutral molecule has revealed that the latter is characterized by an open-chain geometry with two distinct, closely bound N2 units joined by a longer weaker bond.

