This yellow, oily, and explosive liquid is most commonly encountered as a product of chemical reactions between ammonia-derivatives and chlorine (for example, in swimming pools).

Alongside monochloramine and dichloramine, trichloramine is responsible for the distinctive 'chlorine smell' associated with swimming pools, where the compound is readily formed as a product from hypochlorous acid reacting with ammonia and other nitrogenous substances in the water, such as urea from urine.

Nitrogen trichloride, trademarked as Agene, was at one time used to bleach flour,[3] but this practice was banned in the United States in 1949 due to safety concerns.

[citation needed] In the presence of aluminium trichloride, NCl3 react with some branch hydrocarbon to produce, after a hydrolysis step, amines.

[8] In 1813, an NCl3 explosion blinded Sir Humphry Davy temporarily, inducing him to hire Michael Faraday as a co-worker.