Table of Contents 1 Comments This is a redirect entry that shares the content of chemical fertilizers. For the convenience of reading, the chemical fertilizers below have been automatically replaced by chemical fertilizers. You can click here to restore the original appearance, or use the note method to display 1 Note
Chemical fertilizers are referred to as chemical fertilizers. They contain artificial chemical synthesis or mechanical processing. Fertilizer made to promote plant growth and increase yields.
According to ancient Greek legend, the use of animal dung as fertilizer was first discovered by Hercules. Hercules is the son of Zeus, the Lord of the Gods. He is a half-god and half-human hero. He has performed 12 miracles, one of which is to save the 300-head cowshed of King Ogias of Elis in one day. Clean and tidy. He changed the course of the Alpheus River, used the river water to wash away the cow dung, and deposited it on the nearby land, resulting in a bumper harvest. Of course this is a myth, but it also shows that people at that time were aware of the role of manure in increasing crop yields. The ancient Greeks also discovered that crops grew particularly luxuriantly on old battlefields and realized that human and animal corpses were effective fertilizers. The Bible also mentions the fertilization method of pouring animal blood on the ground.
For thousands of years, manure has been used as the main fertilizer in both Europe and Asia. After entering the 18th century, the world's population grew rapidly. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution that broke out in Europe caused a large number of people to flow into cities, exacerbating the shortage of food supply and becoming a cause of social unrest. Chemists began conducting scientific research on crop nutrition in the mid-1900s. The two popular theories of plant nutrition in the early 19th century were the "humus" theory and the "vitality" theory. The former believes that the carbon required by plants does not come from carbon dioxide in the air, but from humus; the latter believes that plants lack their own unique vitality to produce plant ash. In 1840, the famous German chemist Liebig published the book "The Application of Chemistry in Agriculture and Physiology" and founded the theory of plant mineral nutrition and the theory of return. He believed that only minerals are the only nutrients for green plants, and organic matter can only be used as their It is only when it decomposes that it releases minerals that are nutritious to plants. Liebig also pointed out that the mineral nutrients that crops absorb from the soil must be returned to the soil in the form of fertilizer, otherwise the soil will become increasingly impoverished. This negated the "humus" and "vitality" theories, caused a revolution in agricultural theory, and provided a theoretical basis for the birth of chemical fertilizers.
Potash fertilizer
In 1845, Liebig began to engage in research on chemical fertilizers, but field experiments continued to fail. It was not until 1850 that, inspired by the British agricultural chemist T. Way, he changed the insoluble potassium salt used in fertilizers to water-soluble potassium salt and achieved success. At that time, northern Germany was mostly sandy land, and most people thought it was impossible to grow crops there. But Liebig spread potassium fertilizer into the sandy soil and planted crops. Many people think: "Planting crops in sand mixed with salt is simply a lie" and regard Liebig as a madman. But a year later, the sand was covered with beautiful turnips, barley, rye and potatoes. In the eyes of the peasants, Liebig changed from a madman to a god.
Phosphate Fertilizer
Liebig was the inventor of potash fertilizer, but he was not the inventor of the first chemical fertilizer. In 1838, British squire L.B. Laws discovered that superphosphate could be produced by treating phosphate rock with sulfuric acid, which could quickly increase crop yields. Lao Siping obtained the patent for phosphate fertilizer in 1842, which was the first chemical fertilizer produced in the world. In the same year, Rouse and another British scientist J.H. Gilbert established the famous Rosenstre Experimental Station to carry out large-scale field experiments on soil fertility. Rouse and Gilbert objected to Liebig's assertion that plant and animal fertilizers were not needed. They proved through experiments that fertilizers made from decayed animals and plants are an important source of nitrogen in the soil. They also crushed animal bones into bone meal and treated it with sulfuric acid to make superphosphate, which they confirmed was also an extremely important fertilizer. fertilizer.
In 1876, British employee S.G. Thomas invented the pig iron phosphorus removal process for steel plants, which could turn phosphorus impurities in iron into complex phosphates and remove them. Two years later, Thomas discovered that this phosphate steel slag could be a good phosphate fertilizer after being crushed. It was called "Thomas Phosphate Fertilizer".
Nitrogen fertilizer
Around 1850, Rouse and Gilbert used the ammonia produced when extracting coal gas to make sulfuric acid in their research experiments at the Rosenst Experiment Station. , invented the earliest nitrogen fertilizer, but this chemical fertilizer has not been put into production and use for a long time. For a long time, the chemical production of nitrogen fertilizers lagged far behind that of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers.
In 1898, German chemists Frank and Carlo developed iron carbonate, but they did not notice the use of this new compound. It was not until 1901 that Frank's son discovered it and made it a new nitrogen fertilizer. In 1906, Italy first established a large-scale iron carbonate chemical fertilizer plant. The earliest invented nitrogen fertilizer, iron sulfate, was put into production only in 1919.
From 1904 to 1908, the German physical chemist Haber successfully synthesized ammonia by mixing hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water with nitrogen in the atmosphere through high temperature, high pressure, and the action of a catalyst. In 1909, Haber and C. Bosch collaborated to create the Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis method, which solved the technical problem of large-scale production of synthetic ammonia. In 1912, Haber and Bosch completed the production process of synthetic ammonia. In 1913, the world's first large-scale ammonia synthesis plant was put into operation in Germany. Haber won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his significant contributions to the invention and industrial production of synthetic ammonia and to the urgently needed solution to the nitrogen fertilizer problem worldwide.
As early as 1828, the famous German chemist Weller synthesized urea for the first time in the world. However, people did not realize the role of urea as an artificial nitrogen fertilizer at that time. The importance of synthesizing urea at that time was that Weller was the first to break the boundaries between organic compounds and inorganic compounds, and for the first time used artificial methods to prepare urea, which was originally thought to be only available in Organic compounds that can only be produced by living organisms. It was not until 1920 that Germany used carbamic acid to produce urea in large quantities. However, at this time, urea was not used as nitrogen fertilizer, but as a raw material for making explosives. Later, the American DuPont Company began to produce urea and put it on the market as a chemical fertilizer in 1935.