If air is made up of 78% Nitrogen, our blood uses Oxygen and we exhale Carbon dioxide, what happens to nitrogen?

Question

If air is made up of 78% Nitrogen, our blood uses Oxygen and we exhale Carbon dioxide, what happens to nitrogen?

In: Biology

Answer 1

A lot of people are saying that it does nothing but that’s not true. While Nitrogen enters and exits the lungs without any chemical transformation, it does something in the lungs called “tenting.”

Basically, because oxygen is absorbed in the lungs, if the atmosphere was just oxygen, as you breathe in and the oxygen gets absorbed, your lungs would collapse as ask of the volume gets transported into your blood. But because there’s nitrogen in your lungs too, it tents the lungs open and keeps them from collapsing in on themselves.