[5] Curtius and Thiele developed another production process, where a nitrite ester is converted to sodium azide using hydrazine.

[9] Older airbag formulations contained mixtures of oxidizers, sodium azide and other agents including ignitors and accelerants.

An electronic controller detonates this mixture during an automobile crash: The same reaction occurs upon heating the salt to approximately 300 °C.

The sodium that is formed is a potential hazard alone and, in automobile airbags, it is converted by reaction with other ingredients, such as potassium nitrate and silica.

[11] While sodium azide is still used in evacuation slides on modern aircraft, newer-generation automotive air bags contain less sensitive explosives such as nitroguanidine or guanidine nitrate.

[10] The azide functional group can thereafter be converted to an amine by reduction with either SnCl2 in ethanol or lithium aluminium hydride or a tertiary phosphine, such as triphenylphosphine in the Staudinger reaction, with Raney nickel or with hydrogen sulfide in pyridine.

[14] Sodium azide is an instantaneous inhibitor of lactoperoxidase, which can be useful to stop lactroperoxidase catalyzed 125I protein radiolabeling experiments.

Sodium azide increases cyclic GMP levels in the brain and liver by activation of guanylate cyclase.

This can also create potentially dangerous situations if azide solutions should be directly disposed down the drain into a sanitary sewer system.

[30] An increase in the usage of sodium azide as a suicide drug has been attributed to its availability through pyrotechnics-focused online stores.