Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer
Fertilizante nitrogenado sintético
- Date
- 1913–1920s · confidence high
- Place
- Oppau, Ludwigshafen, Germany
- Credited to
- BASF (ammonium sulphate and nitrate, Oppau 1913; Leuna 1917); calcium cyanamide (Frank and Caro, 1898)
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Nitrogen fertilisers fixed industrially, distributed on a mass scale from the 1920s. They multiplied agricultural yields and decoupled food supply from cultivated area.
The Oppau explosion (1921) was the first major accident of the chemical industry.
What it led to
- Green Revolution and world population growth from 2 to 8 billion
- Intensive agriculture and eutrophication of waters
- Agrochemical complex (pesticides, DDT 1939)
Built on
- Haber-Bosch process1909–1913
- Liebig's agricultural chemistry
Made possible
- Green Revolution: semi-dwarf wheat and IR8 rice1960-1966
- Intensive agriculture