Superphosphate fertilizer
Fertilizante superfosfato
- Date
- 1840-1842 · confidence high
- Place
- Rothamsted (Harpenden) and Deptford, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- John Bennet Lawes (with Joseph Henry Gilbert); theoretical basis by Justus von Liebig (Giessen, 1840)
- People
- 👤 John Bennet Lawes1814–1900
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A fertiliser obtained by treating bones or phosphate rock with sulphuric acid to make the phosphorus soluble, patented by Lawes and manufactured at Deptford from 1843. The first industrial chemical fertiliser.
Liebig proposed the mineral theory in 1840, but his own fertiliser failed; Lawes patented superphosphate (1842) and manufactured it at Deptford (London); field experiments were carried out at Rothamsted (Harpenden).
What it led to
- The fertiliser industry and agricultural chemistry
- The Rothamsted Experimental Station (1843), the oldest in the world
- Higher yields and intensive agriculture
- Phosphate mining and agriculture's dependence on sulphuric acid
Built on
- Phosphorus1669
- Commercial guano fertilizer1840-1845
- Liebig's agricultural chemistry (1840)
- lead-chamber sulfuric acid
Made possible
- Nauru phosphate1900
- Haber-Bosch process1909–1913
- Office Chérifien des Phosphates and the Khouribga mines1920
- NPK fertilisers
- Haber-Bosch process (context)
- Experimental agronomy