Makkah specializes in chemical fertilizers, providing essential nutrients to plants, promoting healthy growth, and maximizing crop yields.
Fertilizers are one of the indispensable necessities for humans in food production. However, if we look at the type of fertilizers used, we will find that phosphate and nitrate compounds alone constitute the two main types of fertilizers used in agriculture, which are:
Phosphates are sedimentary rocks, and one of their most important properties is that they do not dissolve in water, so the plant cannot benefit from them except after converting them into compounds dissolved in water to make it easier for the plant to absorb them. There are three main axes to this conversion after the processing of the ore, i.e. phosphate rock, which includes removing impurities and unwanted elements
The first axis: Treating the raw material with sulfuric acid. As a result of this reaction, both monocalcium phosphate, which is a water-soluble substance, and calcium sulphate (gypsum), are formed. This mixture is known commercially as “superphosphate fertilizer.”
As for the second axis, it is converting raw phosphate into phosphoric acid by treating it with a large amount of sulfuric acid. The resulting product is filtered to get rid of gypsum, and then phosphoric acid is added to an equivalent amount of raw phosphate to produce “triple superphosphate fertilizer” that is free of gypsum but contains a high percentage of phosphate raw materials. Phosphorus pentoxide.
The third axis is adding phosphoric acid to ammonia (ammonium) to produce “ammonium phosphate fertilizer,” which is considered a dual fertilizer that supplies the plant with both phosphorus and nitrogen
Nitrogen is one of the basic elements in the formation of plants and animals, because it is the main component of the proteins involved in the structure of living cells. As for the relationship of nitrogen to plants and its effect on plant growth, it began with knowledge of inherited experiences related to agriculture, experiences that were established over long centuries of observations. Plants derive part of their food from the earth, and this food diminishes and decreases with the passage of time and the succession of agriculture, which leads to... Crop yields gradually decrease
It was also known through these inherited experiences that it contributes to renewing the fertility of agricultural soil by using animal manure (animal waste). These experiences turned into a research point that began with this question: What makes animal manure able to renew soil fertility?
This question was the starting point for research into the chemical composition of this type of fertilizer, the secret of its fertility being that it contains three elements: nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus.
Perhaps the most important of them is nitrogen because it increases plant growth, especially the vegetative part of it, i.e.
the leaves and fruits. With the combination of these facts, the increase in population, the subsequent agricultural expansion, and the insufficiency of animal fertilizer, the search took another path, which is the search for an alternative to this fertilizer.
This alternative was nothing but mineral fertilizer, i.e. Chilean nitrate salt, known simply as Chile salt peter and known - in mineral science - as soda niter.
It is one of the mineral deposits that the country of Chile in South America depends on, which contains the most important deposits of this salt in the world, which is no longer sufficient to meet the growing demand for food production in the world
However, chemistry had a different opinion in solving this dilemma, as the German scientist Haber was able to make free atmospheric nitrogen restricted, that is, introduce it into the composition of chemical compounds that benefit the plant in the form of fertilizers.
He was able to prepare ammonia, which is the basic substance in the production of fertilizers, in an economical way by combining atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen.
Thus, he was able to produce fertilizer in two forms: ammonium nitrate fertilizer, prepared industrially by reacting ammonia with nitric acid, and the percentage of nitrogen in it reaches 35%, but it It is often mixed with calcium carbonate (limestone) and is also used as a fertilizer under the name “lime ammonium nitrate.” The percentage of nitrogen in it reaches 20%, and Urea fertilizer, which results from a direct reaction between carbon dioxide gas and an ammonia solution at temperatures up to 20%. 1430 degrees Celsius.