Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772. Black started to discover nitrogen but handed all of his work down to his student, rutherford. Rutherford built on top of Joseph Black’s work. Rutherford reported his discovery as a “noxious gas”, which is now known as nitrogen. Rutherford removed oxygen and carbon dioxide out of the air to show there was a gas that could not support living organisms. Another man, carl scheele discovered nitrogen by himself. Both Rutherford and Scheele are credited to the discovery of nitrogen.