Potash, production

The approximate composition of surface water in the Dead Sea in 1966 (49) was given as 35 g/L calcium chloride 130 g/L magnesium chloride nearly 80 g/L sodium chloride more than 10 g/L potassium chloride nearly 4 g/L bromide and about 1 g/L sulfate. At 400 m depth the bromide concentration was 6 g/L. Bromine in Israel is produced from the Hquors left from potash production and the bromide content of these Hquors is 14 g/L. 

Domestic potash production suppHes one-third of U.S. consumption. The rest comes from mines in Canada and Europe. Pnces of both KCl and K2SO4 fluctuate. KCl ranges between 65 to 95 dollars per ton. Sulfate of potash sells for 150 to 190 dollars per ton. 

The industrial term potash can be very misleading. It can refer to potassium carbonate (K2CO3), potassium hydroxide (KOH), potassium chloride (KCl), potassium sulfate (K2SO4), potassium nitrate (KNO3), or collectively to all potassium salts and to the oxide K2O. More correctly KOH is called caustic potash and KCl is called muriate of potash. Production is recorded in weight equivalents of K2O since almost all potash is used as fertilizer and this industry quotes weight percentages of K2O in its trade. 

In the latter half of the nineteenth centuiy the United States was dependent on the vast Stassfurt deposits of Germany for the potassium compounds needed as fertilizers. In 1911 Congress appropriated funds for a search for domestic minerals, salts, brines, and seaweeds suitable for potash production (67). The complex brines of Searles Lake, California, a rich source of potassium chloride, have been worked up scientifically on the basis of phase-rule studies with outstanding success. Oil drillers exploring the Permian Basin for oil became aware of the possibility of discovering potash deposits through chemical analysis of the cores of saline strata. A rich bed of sylvinite, a natural mixture of sylvite (potassium chloride) and halite (sodium chloride), was found at Carlsbad, New Mexico. At the potash plane near Wendover, Utah, the raw material, a brine, is worked up by solar evaporation (67). 

Thomas H. Norton, 1851-1941. Professor of chemistry at the University of Cincinnati. American consul at Harput, Turkey, at Smyrna, and at Chemnitz, Saxony Author of books on dyes, the cottonseed industry, potash production, and the utilization of atmospheric nitrogen Collaborator with W. F. Hille-brand in researches on cenum (46, 49). 

Natural resources within any major salt basin are an ever-present potential. In preliminary siting of WIPP, known hydrocarbon trends and potash deposits were avoided by the three-square mile repository area. Some potash and potentially some hydrocarbons exist within the buffer zones established for WIPP. The estimated amount of these resources, which may be denied by WIPP, are 13.1 million tons of potash product (K2O) 23.5 billion cubic feet of gas and 42.5 thousand barrels of oil. Many of these resources may not be... 

Mines studies indicate as much as 5.5 million tons of potash product may be presently economic out of the total 13.1 million tons. These resource values are small compared to the total United States reserves but must be considered as a potential target or inducement for future generations. Studies now underway may show that these resources can be developed without jeopardy to the repository. The issue of future penetrations by man is one that cannot, however, be ruled out. This is true for any geologic repository but the probability of such penetration may be somewhat greater for sedimentary and/or salt basins. This eventuality is considered in the repository safety analyses by determining the consequences of such penetrations if they should occur. 

Major sources of commercial bromine are underground brines in Arkansas (which contain 3000-5000 ppm bromine), China, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Bitterns from mined potash in France and Germany, seawater bitterns in India, Italy, and Japan, and bitterns of potash production (which contain 12,000 ppm bromine) from Dead Sea brines in Israel are the other sources. 

Fertilizer Manufacturer Phosphate Production Potash Production Feed Ingredients Nitrogen Production Agricultural Consulting Services Agricultural Support Services... 

B. Wist, Ball-mill degradation test for quality control of granular potash products , (revised), PCS Potash, Saskatoon, Sask., Canada (1997). 

Justus von Liebig (1842) spread the knowledge that potassium is one of the important plant nutrition elements. In 1861, Adolph frank started the first plant using the process he had developed for producing from carnallite - a potassium salt that could be employed as a fertilizer. When Alsace was returned to franco at the end of World War I, the potash works become French property, so that Germany lost her monopoly in potash. Potash production in Spain began in 1926 in Catalonia. In Sicily (Italy) kainite deposits were used for potassium sulfate production. In Russia, potassium production began 1931 in the northern Urals. In 1939, the Soviet Union took over potassium... 

Important Compounds and Uses Around the turn of the millennium, the total annual output of the world s potash industry including potassium sulfates and potassium products for industrial uses amounted to 30 million tons of K2O. Capital investment in the Soviet Union and Canada and the rapidly increasing use of fertilizers in agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s led to a steep increase in world potash production. Since 1980, the average annual increase in world potash production has been only 0.7%. 

Almost two-thirds of the world potash production output are exported. All the potash-producing countries except Brazil and China are exporters. Canada is by far the largest exporter (in total, 17 million tons of K2O were exported annually). The estimated world demand for potash fertilizers in the 1990-1991 business year was 26 million tons of K2O, with some 95% of the total potash production being used as fertilizers. The total output of products of the potash industry exceeds requirements by about 1.5 million tons of K2O. 

Compacted Particles - Particles that have totally irregular shapes. They resemble the shapes of crushed rocl . These particles are made by crushing down to size from thick and wide continuous sheets made by pressing solid particles of the component materials between cylindrical rolls under high pressure. Some muriate of potash products are typical compacted materials. 

Most of the decrease in total fertilizer production resulted from the decrease in phosphate and potash production. Nitrogen production decreased in the early 19S0s but recovered and increased after the mid-1980s after 1988/89, however, it again decreased. 

Fertilizer production increased from 30.0 million tonnes in 1979/80 to 45.2 million tonnes in 1988/89 and decreased rapidly thereafter to reach 27.7 million tonnes in 1992/93. FVoduction of all three nutrients, namely, nitrogen, phosphate, and potash, followed a similar trend. However, potash production decreased by a lower amount than nitrogen production partly because increased costs of energy (natural gas) had a smaller impact on potash production than on nitrogen production in Eurasia. 

In Eurasia, fertilizer production, like fertilizer use, is heavily concentrated in Russia. In 1990, Russia accounted for over one-half of the total fertilizer production - ranging from 43% of K2O to 56% of P2O5. Ukraine and Belarus are other dominant producers. Over one-half of the potash production occurred in Belarus, and about one-fifth to one-fourth of phosphate and nitrogen production took place in Ukraine (Table 3.4). 

Compared with the increases in ammonia and phosphoric acid capacity, the increase in potash capadty will be very small. The main reason for this small Increase is that, during the 1980s, slow growth in demand left considerable excess capacity. The decrease in demand in the early 1990s further added to the excess capacity and created surpluses in the global markets. More detailed projections of global potash production capadty are described in Chapter 4 of this manual. 

The costs of potash mining by conventional methods can vary tremendously. Mining is the major expense of potash production in operations that require more manpower because of low-grade ore or difficult mining conditions. For ore bodies and situations that allow high-capacity operations, mining can be somewhat less expensive than the processing of potash ores at the surface. 

To the present time, world potash production has been only partially based upon economic merit. In the countries of the former Soviet Union and in East Germany, the potash operations were entirely government owned and controlled. These centrally planned economy countries had constructive, but forced-use internal markets, and capital and operating costs were often not critical factors. Consequently, the potash industry in many of these countries employed excessive numbers of workers per tonne of potash produced. Often mines with low-grade ores or processing plants using relatively... 

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