How To Make Laughing Gas

• Introduction

Nitrous oxide is popularly known as laughing gas. As the name suggests, the release of this gas in the atmosphere and surrounding, makes a person laugh. It makes you relax as soon as you inhale it, and hence, you feel dizzy. Laughing gas was invented through experiments by Joseph Priestley in 1772. preparation of laughing gas at home is easily with following steps.

• Preparation of Laughing gas at home?

It's just not that you always need to buy stuffs and chemicals from market. You can make them at home as it is always fun to experiment. The preparation of laughing gas is an easy process, involving less effort and time. The following things will be of your great help if you want to produce laughing gas by sitting at home for your personal use.

• Things required for laughing gas preparation:

Following things are must to prepare the laughing gas:

1. Delivery tube
2. Test tube stands
3. Test tube and stopper
4. Ammonium nitrate ( about 10 gram )
5. Bunsen burner
6. Cold water

Steps of preparing laughing gas:

• Firstly, we need to around 10 grams of ammonium nitrate into test tube. This test tube should be closed on its opening with an air tight stopper which has a hole in it to make delivery tube pass through it. The test tube should bent at an angle of 45 degrees on a stand. The delivery tube should be again connected to another glass tube that is bent.
• Then, we need to pour water into the channel in which the gas has to be prepared to a stage up to the appropriate marked point. The bottle or flask that is required or employed in the collection of water should be filled up to the brim and covered with cardboard temporarily. Now the bottle should be inverted upside down on a support. The water used in the experiment should be hot because nitrous oxide gets well mixed up in the cold water.
• After this step, one should keep the beaker containing cold water in front of the apparatus. Now, the test tube is to be immersed in the cold water if there is any rapid reaction taking place.
• We should start to produce laughing gas now by heating ammonium nitrate slowly with the help of Bunsen burner by keeping it at low. The heating process can be carried out with the alcohol lamp also. Now, burner or the lamp should be kept in the hand  by moving the flame so the heat can be distributed constantly. 

Safety precautions:

• Higher purity ammonium nitrate is more stable than ammonium nitrate that contains impurities, so safety improves if you start with high quality starting material.
• Don't exceed 240 degree Celsius or you'll risk explosive decomposition of ammonium nitrate.
• If you are using direct use of heat source, such as thermostat controlled burner, don't decompose last bit of ammonium nitrate, since it is more likely to over heat.
• Nitrous oxide is safe lab gas, but overexposure via inhalation may result in asphyxiation, in much the same way as overexposure to helium gas presents a risk.