Compound Fertilizer Production Technology

Insoluble Binders Can Often be Used to Strengthen the Salt Bridges Between Particles. 

Granules formed by accretion are almost always harder, more spherical, and more durable than those 

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Kuwabara, M., Hayamizu, S., and Hatakeyama, A., Trends in Urea-Based Compound Fertilizer Technology, in Granular Fertilizers and Their Production, pp. 125-147, British Sulphur Corporation, London, England, 1977. 

Several alternatives are used to reduce ammonia elimination. Applied in relatively small quantities, urease inhibitors such as A-(n-butyl) thiophosphoric acid triamide reduce the rate of microbial hydrolysis of urea and increase its efficiency as a fertilizer (Manahan, 2005). Ammonia volatilization could also be reduced using a mixture of urea with tropical peat soil or free humic substances, such as humic and fulvic acids, isolated from peat soils (Bernard et al., 2009). Another application of green technologies is the use of thermal polyaspartate, a product formed by the condensation and base treatment of a natural compound, aspartic acid. This has been found to be effective in stimulating plant uptake of fertilizer thus reducing the amount of fertilizer required (Manahan, 2005). 

In technological societies, acids, bases, and salts are indispensable compounds. Table 4-13 lists the 16 such compounds that were included in the top 50 chemicals produced in the United States in 1997. The production of H2SO4 (number 1) was more than twice as great as the production of lime (number 2). Sixty-five percent of the H2SO4 is used in the production of fertilizers. 

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