Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is a colourless, non-flammable gas with a slight metallic odour and taste. At elevated temperature it is a powerful oxidising agent.

Nitrous oxide is most commonly used in healthcare applications due to its significant anaesthetic and pain reducing effects. It is also used as an oxidiser in rocket propellants and in motor racing  to temporarily increase the engines power output.

Due to recreational misuse, we have implemented strick tracking procedures to ensure that our customers are only using the nitrous oxide for legitimate (non-inhalation) applications. The Ministry of Health has warned that nitrous oxide is a prescription medicine and the sale or possession without a prescrition is an offence under the Medicines Act through the issue of a letter to retailers (Jim Anderton, 26 June 2005).

Industrial production includes the careful heating of ammonium nitrate, which decomposes to nitrous oxide and water vapour. Due to impurities in the raw product the final nitrous oxide is further purified by passing the gas through a series of acidic and basic washes.

Nitrous oxide has significant global warming potential as a green house gas. On a per-molecule basis it has 298 times the heat trapping ability of carbon dioxide.