Phosphorus

Together with nitrogen, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, phosphorus is classified as a pnictogen.

This group is also known as the nitrogen family. It consists of the elements nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), bismuth (Bi), and perhaps the chemically uncharacterized synthetic element moscovium (Mc).

Other applications include organophosphorus compounds in detergents, pesticides, and nerve agents.

Organophosphorus compounds are organic compounds containing phosphorus.

Phosphates (compounds containing the phosphate ion, PO 4 3− ) are a component of DNA, RNA, ATP, and phospholipids.

Of the various phosphoric acids and phosphates, organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry (and, consequently, in ecology), and inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in agriculture and industry.

The odour of combustion of this form has a characteristic garlic smell, and samples are commonly coated with white "phosphorus pentoxide", which consists of tetrahedra with oxygen inserted between the phosphorus atoms and at their vertices.

Phosphorus pentoxide is a chemical compound with molecular formula P 4 O 10 (with its common name derived from its empirical formula, P 2 O 5 ).

The vast majority of phosphorus compounds mined are consumed as fertilisers.

Phosphorus (P): Development of roots, flowers, seeds, fruit;

Phosphorus is a chemical element with symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth. Violet phosphorus is a form of phosphorus that can be produced by day-long annealing of red phosphorus above 550 °C. In 1865, Hittorf discovered that when phosphorus was recrystallised from molten lead, a red/purple form is obtained.

Elemental phosphorus can exist in several allotropes, the most common of which are white and red solids.

Since its discovery, phosphors and phosphorescence were used loosely to describe substances that shine in the dark without burning.

Phosphorus, the chemical element named for its light-emitting behavior, emits light due to chemiluminescence, not phosphorescence.

, a beta-emitter (1.71 MeV) with a half-life of 14.3 days, which is used routinely in life-science laboratories, primarily to produce radiolabeled DNA and RNA probes, e.g. for use in Northern blots or Southern blots.

Radioisotopes of hydrogen, carbon, phosphorus, sulfur, and iodine have been used extensively to trace the path of biochemical reactions.

Another form, scarlet phosphorus, is obtained by allowing a solution of white phosphorus in carbon disulfide to evaporate in sunlight.

Carbon disulfide is a solvent for phosphorus, sulfur, selenium, bromine, iodine, fats, resins, rubber, and asphalt.

Albright and Wilson in the UK and their Niagara Falls plant, for instance, were using phosphate rock in the 1890s and 1900s from Tennessee, Florida, and the Îles du Connétable (guano island sources of phosphate); by 1950, they were using phosphate rock mainly from Tennessee and North Africa.

Albright and Wilson was founded in 1856 as a United Kingdom manufacturer of potassium chlorate and white phosphorus for the match industry.

Owing to its pyrophoricity, white phosphorus is used as an additive in napalm.

One of Fieser's colleagues suggested adding phosphorus to the mix which increased the "ability to penetrate deeply...into the musculature, where it would continue to burn day after day."

The half-integer nuclear spin and high abundance of 31 P make phosphorus-31 NMR spectroscopy a very useful analytical tool in studies of phosphorus-containing samples.

Phosphorus-31 NMR spectroscopy is an analytical chemistry technique that uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to study chemical compounds that contain phosphorus.

All four symmetrical trihalides are well known: gaseous PF 3, the yellowish liquids PCl 3 and PBr 3, and the solid PI 3 . These materials are moisture sensitive, hydrolysing to give phosphorous acid.

Phosphorus trifluoride (formula PF 3 ), is a colorless and odorless gas.

As urine contains phosphorus, it has fertilising qualities which are still harnessed today in some countries, including Sweden, using methods for reuse of excreta.

Excreta contains resources that can be recovered: plant-available nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium as well as micronutrients such as sulphur and organic matter.

All four symmetrical trihalides are well known: gaseous PF 3, the yellowish liquids PCl 3 and PBr 3, and the solid PI 3 . These materials are moisture sensitive, hydrolysing to give phosphorous acid.

Phosphorus trichloride is a chemical compound of phosphorus and chlorine, having the chemical formula PCl 3 . It has a trigonal pyramidal shape.

PCl 5 and PF 5 are common compounds.

Phosphorus pentafluoride, PF 5, is a phosphorus halide.

All four symmetrical trihalides are well known: gaseous PF 3, the yellowish liquids PCl 3 and PBr 3, and the solid PI 3 . These materials are moisture sensitive, hydrolysing to give phosphorous acid.

Phosphorus tribromide is a colourless liquid with the formula PBr 3.

The glow of phosphorus is caused by oxidation of the white (but not red) phosphorus — a process now called chemiluminescence.

One of the oldest known chemiluminescent reactions is that of elemental white phosphorus oxidizing in moist air, producing a green glow. This is a gas-phase reaction of phosphorus vapor, above the solid, with oxygen producing the excited states (PO) 2 and HPO.

PBr 5 is an unstable solid formulated as PBr 4 + Br − and PI 5 is not known.

Phosphorus pentabromide is a reactive, yellow solid of formula PBr 5, which has the structure PBr 4 + Br − in the solid state but in the vapor phase is completely dissociated to PBr 3 and Br 2 . Rapid cooling of this phase to 15 K leads to formation of the ionic species phosphorus heptabromide ([PBr 4 ] + [Br 3 ] − ).

Although many oxoacids of phosphorus are formed, only nine are commercially important, and three of them, hypophosphorous acid, phosphorous acid, and phosphoric acid, are particularly important.

Hypophosphorous acid is a phosphorus oxyacid and a powerful reducing agent with molecular formula H 3 PO 2.

All four symmetrical trihalides are well known: gaseous PF 3, the yellowish liquids PCl 3 and PBr 3, and the solid PI 3 . These materials are moisture sensitive, hydrolysing to give phosphorous acid.

Note that phosphorus also forms a lower iodide, P 2 I 4, but the existence of PI 5 is doubtful at room temperature.

Violet phosphorus is a form of phosphorus that can be produced by day-long annealing of red phosphorus above 550 °C. In 1865, Hittorf discovered that when phosphorus was recrystallised from molten lead, a red/purple form is obtained.

Hittorf's early investigations were on the allotropes of phosphorus and selenium.

Phosphorus is a chemical element with symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth.

The composition of the human body, by contrast, more closely follows the composition of seawater—save that the human body has additional stores of carbon and nitrogen necessary to form the proteins and nucleic acids, together with phosphorus in the nucleic acids and energy transfer molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that occurs in the cells of all living organisms.

These compounds react with water to form phosphine.

Perhaps because of its strong association with elemental phosphorus, phosphine was once regarded as a gaseous form of the element, but Lavoisier (1789) recognised it as a combination of phosphorus with hydrogen and described it as phosphure d'hydrogène (phosphide of hydrogen).

, a beta-emitter (1.71 MeV) with a half-life of 14.3 days, which is used routinely in life-science laboratories, primarily to produce radiolabeled DNA and RNA probes, e.g. for use in Northern blots or Southern blots.

To detect hybridization of the probe to its target sequence, the probe is tagged (or "labeled") with a molecular marker of either radioactive or (more recently) fluorescent molecules; commonly used markers are 32 P (a radioactive isotope of phosphorus incorporated into the phosphodiester bond in the probe DNA) or Digoxigenin, which is a non-radioactive, antibody-based marker.