ABSTRACT
N-nitroso compounds (NOC) belong to a class of organic compounds with the general formula R2NNO and RNHNO. They are the chemical compounds, which were rst described in the chemical literature over 100 years ago. For the rst time in 1954 two British scientists, John Barnes and Peter Magee [1], reported the acute toxicity of nitrosamines in human. Two years later, in 1956 the same workers [2] showed that liver tumors could be induced in rats by feeding them with N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). Magee and Barnes’ landmark discovery caused scientists around the world to investigate the N-nitroso compound for their carcinogenic properties and it was found that approximately 90% of nitrosamine compounds were deemed to be carcinogenic. Later in 1965 it was discovered that the presence of N-nitrosodimethylamine in spoiled herring was responsible for an outbreak of acute liver toxicity in Norwegian sheep [3,4] thus causing environmental hazards.
