Fertilisers contain soluble nitrogen compounds, which plants need to make proteins.
They are added to soil to promote fast and strong growth in plants.
They can either be:
a) natural e.g. manure
b) artificial
Ammonia is a nitrogen-containing compound used as a raw material to make nitrogenous fertilisers.
Ammonia was first made artificially in the 1900's by a scientist called Fritz Haber. The Haber process to make ammonia was made by him.
The haber process uses a reversible reaction between nitrogen and hydrogen to form ammonia.
The nitrogen is extracted from the air, and the hydrogen is produced from methane, the main gas in natural gas.
The Haber process happens in a giant vessel called a reactor. The conditions of the reactor allow the forward reaction to happen faster than the backward reaction.
The advantage of this process is that we can produce artificial fertilisers. This in turn means that more crops can be grown and more people can be fed.
The disadvantage of this process is that fertilisers contain highly soluble chemicals chemicals which can easily be washed into rivers and lakes. This leads to eutrophication. This causes algae and plants in the water to grow quickly. When the plants die, the bacteria and fungi use up the oxygen in the water. This results in other marine organisms suffocate due to the lack of oxygen available.
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C3/ Further Additional Science
No FicciónChemistry 3- Chemistry in Action Aimed at those who are in Year 11 doing further additional science/ triple science. This is a revision book that gives you an in-depth look into the main topics In this module. If you have a specific topic, message...
